Have You Heard the Maestri Murmurings?

In case the news slipped past you a few weeks ago, the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed a Washington County judge’s order to dismiss a restaurateur’s lawsuit stemming from the closure of a popular restaurant in Tontitown.

By a 3-0 vote, the justices overturned now-retired Washington County circuit judge Kim Smith’s order granting a motion to dismiss Daniel Maestri’s lawsuit, which named Signature Bank of Arkansas, First National Bank of Rogers, Lindsey & Associates Inc., Block Realty and Auction and Paul Colvin as defendants.

The case reached the state’s highest court last May. Motions to dismiss the case were made by Smith in March 2011 and again in January 2012.

Unless the defendants filed any late orders after our press deadline, the case will be remanded back to the circuit court this week.

The governor has since appointed Doug Martin to replace Smith as judge of the 4th Judicial District, 2nd Division.

‘The Unthinkable’

Maestri filed his original petition in Washington County in June 2010, seeking an injunction to stop the sale of the building that housed the restaurant Mary Maestri’s.

In subsequent complaints, Maestri alleged the defendants violated state and federal trademark rights, and committed breach of contract and violation of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

The filing was made one month after the restaurant in Tontitown was closed.

Maestri is the grandson of Mary Maestri’s founders Aldo and Mary Maestri, who established their restaurant 90 years ago.

Mary Maestri’s, a trademarked name, was shuttered by the state Department of Finance and Administration in May 2010 when it was delinquent in the payment of thousands of sales-tax dollars.

“What happened next, in my opinion, forced us out of business at that location,” Maestri told the Business Journal in January 2012. “The unthinkable hit us when Signature Bank of Arkansas, who we had a lease agreement with, demanded that the First National Bank of Rogers remove all of our restaurant equipment, which led them to foreclose on our loan.”

Maestri re-opened the restaurant in August on the east side of Springdale on Robinson Avenue.