Signage on the former Caldero restaurant in McGregor Square on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Caldero, an unsuccessful restaurant in McGregor Square, can rebrand as La Loma after the ex-wife of La Loma’s owner won it in a divorce.
“Renee Brinkerhoff went before the divorce court and argued that the intellectual property rights of the restaurants was a marital asset and the divorce court, it appears, agreed with her,” U.S. District Judge Gordon Gallagher said at the end of a four-hour hearing. “She was granted a right to use those IP rights for the restaurants that she was granted in the divorce.”
The Brinkerhoff family owns a half-dozen restaurants, the most successful being the Mexican eatery La Loma in downtown Denver and Castle Rock, and Sierra in Lone Tree. In December, the six were divided between William and Renee Brinkerhoff when their marriage of 44 years ended in an ugly divorce. Fallout from the split continues.
Mrs. Brinkerhoff was awarded two future La Loma locations under construction in Parker and the Denver Tech Center, plus Caldero, a massive McGregor Square restaurant that has been losing more than $100,000 monthly since opening two years ago. Last month, she began working to rebrand Caldero as La Loma in an attempt to reverse its fortunes.
On March 11, William Brinkerhoff sued his ex-wife, accusing her of infringing on the La Loma trademark, which he claims exclusive rights to. At Wednesday’s hearing, attorneys for the ex-husband warned the new La Loma McGregor Square will confuse customers.
“Everybody is going to think that it’s the same as La Loma downtown,” Jessie Pellant, from the Studio IP firm in Denver, told Gallagher. “It’s a mile away, why wouldn’t they?”
But Kris Kostolansky, an attorney for Renee Brinkerhoff, argued that under the divorce decree, his client has just as much authority to use the La Loma name as William Brinkerhoff.
A barrel inside the La Loma Mexican restaurant at 1801 Broadway on November 2, 2016. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
“All of this effort to prevent rebranding is simply designed to continue to choke off the financial resources flowing to Mrs. Brinkerhoff as a result of the divorce during her efforts to try to get La Loma Parker and La Loma DTC under way,” Kostolansky said of William’s lawsuit. “It’s very difficult to get those open when you don’t have a profitable, operating restaurant.”
“Your position then,” Gallagher asked him, “is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Caldero, any time it wants, essentially rebranding itself as a La Loma restaurant?”
“That’s correct,” Kostolansky responded, “because Mrs. Brinkerhoff is the owner of Caldero and Mrs. Brinkerhoff has an equal right to do what she chooses with the name La Loma, because that is what has been awarded to both Mrs. Brinkerhoff and Mr. Brinkerhoff.”
Judge William Meyer, who decided the couple’s divorce case, was ambiguous in his division of the restaurants’ intellectual property. His ruling gave the restaurant trademarks to the owners of those restaurants, a decision that could be narrowly interpreted as limiting Caldero to only using Caldero’s trademark, or interpreted as giving Renee use of La Loma as well.
“There are cloudy issues, at the very least, as to who owns the trademark,” Gallagher said on Wednesday, before announcing he would not stand in the way of Caldero’s rebrand.
“The defendant has provided clear and credible testimony regarding her plans for Caldero as La Loma McGregor Square and the devastating effects that an injunction would have on the business,” the judge said of Renee Brinkerhoff. “She has previously been involved in the management of La Loma and shows unambiguous passion for the brand that inclines the court to find that substantial harm to the La Loma brand’s goodwill is unlikely.”
William Brinkerhoff said in a statement Thursday that he is carefully weighing his next move.
“It would be irresponsible to compromise the concept we have built and fine-tuned over the past 45 years,” he said of La Loma. Brinkerhoff wrote “that the integrity of our brand” has been his foremost concern. “That cannot be achieved with two operators who are not aligned.”
The bar area at Caldero restaurant in McGregor Square on Feb. 22, 2023. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Renee did not respond to questions about the rebranding, which was well underway Thursday. A signpost at McGregor Square had already been changed to read “La Loma” and paper signs in the windows of Caldero advertised that La Loma will open there at 11 a.m. Monday.
The increasingly public fracas between William and Renee Brinkerhoff has divided their four adult children. The eldest and youngest, Will Jr. and Christina, have sided with their mom. The two middle children, Mark and Juliette Brinkerhoff, support their father.
“It has now become obvious to me how far my mom will go to destroy my family,” Juliette wrote in a March 17 affidavit filed by her dad’s lawyers. “I continue to be her collateral damage. My mom has no regard for the pain she is causing, not just to me but to all of us.”
The couple’s eldest daughter, who is 40 years old, says Renee’s allegations that William coerced and controlled her “are fabricated to once again make her look good and to destroy his reputation.” Juliette says that her mom, not her dad, was controlling and abusive.
“I have seen my mother destroy anyone in her path to get what she wants, but what she wants is unattainable. She lives in a black hole of greed and then masks it with a false narrative that she is standing up for what is right,” Juliette wrote. “My reputation and my life are forever affected by my mother’s willingness to lie, her drive for greed, power and celebrity. I am convinced that what she has will never be enough. I hope the truth prevails.”
That affidavit was filed in a civil case that her mother filed against William and Mark in 2023, accusing them of secretly removing her as a co-owner of the Brinkerhoff restaurants. The judge who decided William and Renee’s divorce case found the former used “concealed machinations” to remove Renee’s shares but William and Mark say that Renee, who received assets of $29.5 million in the split, is greedily seeking more, at great cost.
“Renee and her lawyers decided to wage war, expending over $4 million in legal fees for her share of the divorce action, in an endless effort to destroy me and my reputation, and try to secure an unfair allocation of the marital property,” William wrote in a March 17 affidavit.
He says that he spent $1.6 million to Renee’s $4.5 million in divorce attorney fees and court costs. That $6.1 million total, which doesn’t include ongoing expenses in the civil case and its upcoming summer trial, is more than 10 percent of the couple’s $59 million estate.
Mark Brinkerhoff, left, and his father William Brinkerhoff. (Photo courtesy of Brinkerhoff Hospitality)
“She is now trying to inflict financial ruin on me, my son and his family, including her own grandson,” William wrote of his ex-wife this week, referring to Mark’s child.
William and Mark say in court filings that they “have taken the highroad” in the civil case to date but “no longer have that option because of Renee’s myopic battle to rob her son and his family.” Renee’s lawyers responded Tuesday by calling the court filings and affidavits a false and “almost entirely irrelevant diatribe” designed to publicly embarrass her.
“The ‘low road’ they evidently intend to take from now on is low indeed,” Kostolansky wrote of the male Brinkerhoffs, “and includes affidavits from (Renee)’s daughter and daughter-in-law that seek to publicize all of her alleged failures as a mother, mother-in-law and person.”
Signage on the former Caldero restaurant in McGregor Square on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Caldero, an unsuccessful restaurant in McGregor Square, can rebrand as La Loma after the ex-wife of La Loma’s owner won it in a divorce.
“Renee Brinkerhoff went before the divorce court and argued that the intellectual property rights of the restaurants was a marital asset and the divorce court, it appears, agreed with her,” U.S. District Judge Gordon Gallagher said at the end of a four-hour hearing. “She was granted a right to use those IP rights for the restaurants that she was granted in the divorce.”
The Brinkerhoff family owns a half-dozen restaurants, the most successful being the Mexican eatery La Loma in downtown Denver and Castle Rock, and Sierra in Lone Tree. In December, the six were divided between William and Renee Brinkerhoff when their marriage of 44 years ended in an ugly divorce. Fallout from the split continues.
Mrs. Brinkerhoff was awarded two future La Loma locations under construction in Parker and the Denver Tech Center, plus Caldero, a massive McGregor Square restaurant that has been losing more than $100,000 monthly since opening two years ago. Last month, she began working to rebrand Caldero as La Loma in an attempt to reverse its fortunes.
On March 11, William Brinkerhoff sued his ex-wife, accusing her of infringing on the La Loma trademark, which he claims exclusive rights to. At Wednesday’s hearing, attorneys for the ex-husband warned the new La Loma McGregor Square will confuse customers.
“Everybody is going to think that it’s the same as La Loma downtown,” Jessie Pellant, from the Studio IP firm in Denver, told Gallagher. “It’s a mile away, why wouldn’t they?”
But Kris Kostolansky, an attorney for Renee Brinkerhoff, argued that under the divorce decree, his client has just as much authority to use the La Loma name as William Brinkerhoff.
A barrel inside the La Loma Mexican restaurant at 1801 Broadway on November 2, 2016. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
“All of this effort to prevent rebranding is simply designed to continue to choke off the financial resources flowing to Mrs. Brinkerhoff as a result of the divorce during her efforts to try to get La Loma Parker and La Loma DTC under way,” Kostolansky said of William’s lawsuit. “It’s very difficult to get those open when you don’t have a profitable, operating restaurant.”
“Your position then,” Gallagher asked him, “is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Caldero, any time it wants, essentially rebranding itself as a La Loma restaurant?”
“That’s correct,” Kostolansky responded, “because Mrs. Brinkerhoff is the owner of Caldero and Mrs. Brinkerhoff has an equal right to do what she chooses with the name La Loma, because that is what has been awarded to both Mrs. Brinkerhoff and Mr. Brinkerhoff.”
Judge William Meyer, who decided the couple’s divorce case, was ambiguous in his division of the restaurants’ intellectual property. His ruling gave the restaurant trademarks to the owners of those restaurants, a decision that could be narrowly interpreted as limiting Caldero to only using Caldero’s trademark, or interpreted as giving Renee use of La Loma as well.
“There are cloudy issues, at the very least, as to who owns the trademark,” Gallagher said on Wednesday, before announcing he would not stand in the way of Caldero’s rebrand.
“The defendant has provided clear and credible testimony regarding her plans for Caldero as La Loma McGregor Square and the devastating effects that an injunction would have on the business,” the judge said of Renee Brinkerhoff. “She has previously been involved in the management of La Loma and shows unambiguous passion for the brand that inclines the court to find that substantial harm to the La Loma brand’s goodwill is unlikely.”
William Brinkerhoff said in a statement Thursday that he is carefully weighing his next move.
“It would be irresponsible to compromise the concept we have built and fine-tuned over the past 45 years,” he said of La Loma. Brinkerhoff wrote “that the integrity of our brand” has been his foremost concern. “That cannot be achieved with two operators who are not aligned.”
The bar area at Caldero restaurant in McGregor Square on Feb. 22, 2023. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Renee did not respond to questions about the rebranding, which was well underway Thursday. A signpost at McGregor Square had already been changed to read “La Loma” and paper signs in the windows of Caldero advertised that La Loma will open there at 11 a.m. Monday.
The increasingly public fracas between William and Renee Brinkerhoff has divided their four adult children. The eldest and youngest, Will Jr. and Christina, have sided with their mom. The two middle children, Mark and Juliette Brinkerhoff, support their father.
“It has now become obvious to me how far my mom will go to destroy my family,” Juliette wrote in a March 17 affidavit filed by her dad’s lawyers. “I continue to be her collateral damage. My mom has no regard for the pain she is causing, not just to me but to all of us.”
The couple’s eldest daughter, who is 40 years old, says Renee’s allegations that William coerced and controlled her “are fabricated to once again make her look good and to destroy his reputation.” Juliette says that her mom, not her dad, was controlling and abusive.
“I have seen my mother destroy anyone in her path to get what she wants, but what she wants is unattainable. She lives in a black hole of greed and then masks it with a false narrative that she is standing up for what is right,” Juliette wrote. “My reputation and my life are forever affected by my mother’s willingness to lie, her drive for greed, power and celebrity. I am convinced that what she has will never be enough. I hope the truth prevails.”
That affidavit was filed in a civil case that her mother filed against William and Mark in 2023, accusing them of secretly removing her as a co-owner of the Brinkerhoff restaurants. The judge who decided William and Renee’s divorce case found the former used “concealed machinations” to remove Renee’s shares but William and Mark say that Renee, who received assets of $29.5 million in the split, is greedily seeking more, at great cost.
“Renee and her lawyers decided to wage war, expending over $4 million in legal fees for her share of the divorce action, in an endless effort to destroy me and my reputation, and try to secure an unfair allocation of the marital property,” William wrote in a March 17 affidavit.
He says that he spent $1.6 million to Renee’s $4.5 million in divorce attorney fees and court costs. That $6.1 million total, which doesn’t include ongoing expenses in the civil case and its upcoming summer trial, is more than 10 percent of the couple’s $59 million estate.
Mark Brinkerhoff, left, and his father William Brinkerhoff. (Photo courtesy of Brinkerhoff Hospitality)
“She is now trying to inflict financial ruin on me, my son and his family, including her own grandson,” William wrote of his ex-wife this week, referring to Mark’s child.
William and Mark say in court filings that they “have taken the highroad” in the civil case to date but “no longer have that option because of Renee’s myopic battle to rob her son and his family.” Renee’s lawyers responded Tuesday by calling the court filings and affidavits a false and “almost entirely irrelevant diatribe” designed to publicly embarrass her.
“The ‘low road’ they evidently intend to take from now on is low indeed,” Kostolansky wrote of the male Brinkerhoffs, “and includes affidavits from (Renee)’s daughter and daughter-in-law that seek to publicize all of her alleged failures as a mother, mother-in-law and person.”
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