Name fight too hot for curry house

An Indian restaurant on the brink of a legal battle with budget brand easyGroup has decided to back down, its spokesman said today.

The restaurant easyCurry, based in Northampton, sparked threats of legal action from the multi-million pound group over its name and style and colour of its sign.

The restaurant originally agreed to change the font and colour of its sign from the famous orange used by easyJet and other brands, but refused to change the name.

But today spokesman Naz Uddin said they had decided to back down over the name because of funds.

He said: "We're going to change but to what we don't know.

"Ideally we'd like to keep the word easy in the title because of the concept of dining, but we'll have to think long and hard about what to change it to."

The restaurant, which only opened four weeks ago in Northampton town centre, allows customers to pay £5 then whatever else they think their meal is worth - with no maximum or minimum amount.

Its original sign of a black background with 'easy' written in white and 'curry' in orange will now be changed.

Mr Uddin said: "We'll be sitting down with the legal people to work out how we can do it, and maybe keep the easy in but not cause this much trouble. We don't want another repeat of this."

He said they would even consider opening up to ideas from the public, and said after hitting the spotlight he thought people would be interested in seeing what the new name would be.

Despite pledging yesterday to "take this as far as we can", Mr Uddin said it had boiled down to money.

He added: "We've thought through everything and it all boils down to money.

"They are a multi-national company and they can afford it and we can't. It's as simple as that."

The organisation easyGroup owns the easy brand and licenses it to official easy-branded businesses, including easyJet.

Anthony Robb-John, managing director of easyGroup, said: "We don't want to comment on any case in particular, but we always take steps to protect our rights so the public aren't misled by people or businesses passing themselves off as being part of easyGroup."