One of the problems about reporting on lawsuits — a problem for both journalists and those involved in a lawsuit that receives media coverage — is that while the filing of a lawsuit might generate an article, the lawsuit’s outcome sometimes doesn’t.
That can seem unfair to a defendant when a lawsuit alleging bad behavior gets coverage but then is dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can’t be refiled. Grandon Kidd, owner of Pasta J’s in Bryant, was one such defendant. Kidd called me earlier this month saying he hoped for “the same kind of coverage we got on the wrapup as there was on the filing.”
This was not an unreasonable request. But a conversation with Kidd evolved into a discussion of some of the hardships restaurants like his have endured during the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures that one restaurateur, Kidd, took to survive. “This has been such a rough stretch,” he said.
And it has. However, with the resolution of the nearly 4-year-old lawsuit, vaccinations underway and the lifting last month of capacity limits for restaurants, Kidd was feeling relief.
The lawsuit, which I wrote about in this space in July 2017, was filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court by Brad Nutt, then of Benton, and Pasta Jack’s Inc. It alleged that the operators of three restaurants once linked to Pasta Jack’s Inc. — in Bryant (Kidd’s Pasta J’s), Benton and Little Rock — misappropriated Nutt’s and Pasta Jack’s trade secrets and infringed on the Pasta Jack’s and Pasta Jack’s Italian trade name and service mark.
The defendants denied Nutt’s claims. In 2019, Nutt’s lawyer withdrew as counsel and Nutt began representing himself and Pasta Jack’s. In December 2020, Judge Chris Piazza, who has since retired, noted that a corporate entity, Pasta Jack’s, must be represented by a licensed attorney and gave Nutt until Feb. 1, 2021, to find one. “Otherwise,” the judge said, “this order by its own terms will summarily dismiss the plaintiff’s case with prejudice in light of the aforesaid observations, its years on file, and a lack of fact-pleading which stated a viable cause of action.”
Nutt failed to find a lawyer to represent Pasta Jack’s, and so on Feb. 2, Judge Patricia James, who succeeded Piazza, dismissed the case with prejudice.
“I’m certainly glad to have this burden off of my plate, with everything else that’s been going on, dealing with COVID,” Kidd said.
But even several years before the pandemic, independently owned restaurants in Saline County, like Pasta J’s, had faced competitive challenges with the influx of chain restaurants that entered the market after the county voted to go “wet” in 2014. “A ton of chain restaurants moved in here as fast as they could pour concrete,” forcing about a dozen family-owned restaurants to close, Kidd said. “It was rough,” he said. “And then we kind of start to normalize from that and then we go right into COVID.”
Add a long-running lawsuit to the list of obstacles, and you can understand the frustration.
Kidd is now operating his restaurant at just under 50% capacity, despite the state’s having lifted the capacity limits on restaurants, because he feels more comfortable doing that until he can see how pandemic infection rates are trending. Kidd said that had been his strategy throughout the pandemic and his restaurant had been free of infection. “The lagging has really served us well.”
During the lockdown last March and April, Pasta J’s survived off its drive-through window and delivery business, but increased demand for delivery brought its own challenge: The third-party delivery services raised their fees.
A loosening of restrictions also allowed restaurants to operate as specialty grocery stores, and working through his food suppliers, Kidd would look for anything he could sell to customers. For example, his Sysco rep found cases of two-ply toilet paper in single rolls, and Kidd sold that.
He’d cut down large amounts of chicken and beef into 1- and 2-pound packages and sell that. “I canned jalapenos, just anything I could find that somebody else wasn’t doing or there was a need for,” Kidd said. “I sold all that through the drive-through.”
“That’s what bridged the gap, from not paying my bills to paying the bills, was the hustle,” he said.
“The blessing coming at the end of all this was being released from this lawsuit. We’re still open and we’re free of that.”
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