Call Your Mother, the locally founded bagel shop that markets itself as a “Jew-ish deli,” is suing New Jersey bagel store Bubbi Bagels, arguing that the “Call Your Bubbi” tagline infringes on the brand’s trademark.

Call Your Mother has become known around the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area in part due to its vibrant neon pink and teal branding, which includes a circular logo featuring “Call Your Mother” written in all caps around a circular rotary phone rendering that is reminiscent of a bagel.

Though the New Jersey store officially goes by “Bubbi Bagels,” its social media profile features a circular logo with a sesame bagel in the middle and the words “Call Your Bubbi” written around it. (Bubbe means “grandmother” in Yiddish.) The store also displays a large LED neon sign with the same phrase.

“Our client respects fair competition, but trademarks exist to help guests know who is behind the services they are choosing,” attorney Matthew A. Homyk said in an email to The Banner. The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday argues that “Call Your Bubbi” could confuse consumers into thinking that the New Jersey shop is affiliated with Call Your Mother.

The Banner has reached out to a representative for Bubbi Bagels for comment.

A cease and desist letter Homyk sent to Bubbi Bagels in August argued that Call Your Mother’s branding is “distinctive and [has] acquired significant goodwill and recognition among consumers in the food and restaurant industry.”

Call Your Mother filed four trademarks between 2019 and 2020 to protect its branding, including the phrase “Call Your Mother” within the realm of cafes, delis, restaurants and food trucks. (Which explains why the bagel shop isn’t also suing, say, the creators of a podcast called “Call Your Bubby” or the Jewish Museum in New York, which sells a circular pin reading “Call your bubbe.”)

The chain is demanding that Bubbi Bagels refrain from using the phrase “Call Your Bubbi” in any products and marketing, both online and in person, now and in the future.

Call Your Mother was founded in 2018 by Andrew Dana and D.C.-local chef Daniela Moreira (along with investments from Kensington native Jeff Zients, who would go on to become White House chief of staff under President Joe Biden). It now boasts 14 shops across D.C., Maryland and Virginia, with six more in Colorado and a handful of others in the works around the country (including one coming “soon-ish” to Bethesda, per the company’s website).

Bubbi Bagels is a certified kosher breakfast and brunch spot located at the Wave Resort in Long Branch, New Jersey, according to its site.