Trademark Class 43: Restaurants & Hotels
Class 43 covers restaurant, cafe, bar, catering, and hotel services.
Class 43 covers restaurants & hotels. The USPTO charges $350 per class. With MARQ, a one-class federal registration is $849 all in — a flat $499 attorney fee plus the $350 USPTO fee at cost.
Class 43 is hospitality: restaurant services, cafes, bars, food trucks, catering, and temporary accommodation like hotels and short-term rentals. If customers come to you (or you come to them) and you serve food or drink, this is your class.
The class is straightforward. What is not straightforward for restaurant brands is the name itself. Restaurant names are disproportionately geographic (“Hudson Valley Kitchen”), surname-based (“Marino’s”), or descriptive (“The Best Bagel”) — and each of those categories carries its own statutory refusal. The class is easy; clearance is where restaurants lose.
What Class 43 covers
- Restaurant services
- Cafe, coffee shop, and bakery-cafe services
- Bar and cocktail lounge services
- Food truck and mobile food services
- Catering services
- Hotel, motel, and temporary accommodation services
- Bed and breakfast and short-term lodging services
- Takeout and delivery restaurant services
Typical Class 43 identifications: “Restaurant services; Cafe services; Bar services; Catering services; Mobile restaurant services; Hotel services.” These are clean ID Manual entries — using them exactly avoids the USPTO’s $200-per-class free-form text fee.
What Class 43 does not cover
Each of these is a separate class with its own $350 USPTO fee. Getting this boundary wrong is the most common reason a registration turns out not to protect what the owner thought it protected.
| If you also sell… | You need… |
|---|---|
| Packaged food you sell in stores or online | The goods class — Class 30 for sauces and baked goods, 29 for prepared meats and dairy, 32 for drinks. A restaurant that bottles its hot sauce needs 30 as well as 43. |
| Franchising your restaurant concept | Class 35 — franchise business management and consulting services. |
| A cooking school or classes | Class 41 — education. |
| Beer you brew and sell in cans | Class 32. A brewpub that also distributes typically needs 32 and 43. |
Who files in Class 43
- Restaurants, cafes, and bars
- Food trucks and pop-ups
- Caterers
- Hotels, inns, and short-term rental brands
- Ghost kitchens and delivery-only brands
- Brewpubs and taprooms (with Class 32 for the beer)
Classes that usually go with Class 43
| Class | Why it comes up |
|---|---|
| Class 30 | Sauces, spice blends, baked goods, coffee — anything you package and sell. |
| Class 29 | Prepared foods, jerky, cheeses, dips. |
| Class 32 | Beer, canned cocktails (non-alcoholic drinks; spirits and wine are 33). |
| Class 35 | Franchising, or a retail arm selling merchandise. |
| Class 25 | Merch — a beloved restaurant’s t-shirt is a real product line. |
Cost math: each additional class is $350 more in USPTO fees. MARQ’s $499 attorney fee does not change. Two classes: $499 + $700 = $1,199. Three: $499 + $1,050 = $1,549.
Pitfalls specific to Class 43
Geographic names get refused
A restaurant named for the place it sits — a neighborhood, a river, a city — invites a refusal for being primarily geographically descriptive under Section 2(e)(2). It is not automatic; the analysis turns on whether the public would think the goods or services come from that place, and whether the term is obscure. But it is the single most common structural problem with restaurant names, and it is knowable before you file.
Surnames get refused too
A restaurant called by the founder’s last name faces a refusal for being primarily merely a surname (Section 2(e)(4)) unless the mark has acquired distinctiveness. Family restaurant brands are built on surnames all the time, so this comes up constantly. Five years of substantially exclusive use is the usual path — but you have to know that going in.
The packaged-goods blind spot
You register “restaurant services” in Class 43, the sauce takes off, a grocery chain picks it up — and your registration says nothing about sauce. Class 43 protects the service. It does not protect the bottle on the shelf. If packaged product is even plausibly in your future, the goods class is worth discussing before you file, not after a competitor beats you to it.
Class 43 questions
What class is a restaurant trademark?
Class 43 — restaurant services. Cafes, bars, catering, and food trucks all sit in Class 43 too. Packaged food you sell separately belongs in a goods class such as 29, 30, or 32.
Can I trademark my restaurant name if it includes a city?
Sometimes. Geographically descriptive marks are refused under Section 2(e)(2) when the public would understand the name as identifying where the services come from. The outcome depends on the specific term, and a clearance search plus an attorney’s read is the way to know before spending the filing fee.
Do I need a separate trademark for my restaurant’s sauce?
To protect the sauce as a product, yes — that is a goods class (usually Class 30), separate from Class 43 restaurant services, with its own $350 USPTO fee. A single application can cover both classes.
How much does it cost to trademark a restaurant name?
$849 for Class 43 alone: $499 flat attorney fee plus $350 USPTO fee at cost. Adding a goods class for packaged food brings USPTO fees to $700, so $1,199 all in.
Filing in Class 43?
Start with the free search to see what is already on the register. The $49 comprehensive attorney report tells you whether the mark is clearable in this class — before you spend $350 with the USPTO. Registration is a flat $499 plus USPTO fees at cost.
Run a free searchSee flat pricingFree DIY search · $49 comprehensive attorney search · $499 + USPTO fees to register
Fee and deadline figures on this page come from the USPTO: trademark fee information, additional fees for trademark applications, and the USPTO trademarks dashboard. This page is general information about U.S. trademark law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. No attorney can guarantee registration — the USPTO decides.