It’s been a bad week for naming restaurants after America’s heritage: Boka Group’s Armour & Swift, a West Loop steakhouse whose name was meant to evoke Chicago’s meatpacking history (both having been early meatpacking giants). The problem was that Armour is still an active brand name with active lawyers, and they threatened action to protect their brand. Ironically the same company, after many mergers, wound up owning the Swift name too, but apparently it’s no longer defendable—because Boka’s Armour & Swift is now Swift & Co. Other suggestions (Sinclair & Luetgert?) were rejected. This is the second time Boka Group has had to change a name because somebody else already had it—the Girl & the Goat was originally going to be the Drunken Goat, which is a cheese brand from Spain.
• RPM Steak will have a dinner on Monday, August 24 with Local Option brewery, which will pour brews for the five-course dinner including Dampf Loc, an all-barley, warm-fermented ale originally crafted by Black Forest peasants, and Die Konigin, an unfiltered, oak-aged lager. The dinner is $150 per person; call 312-284-4990.
