The Story Behind Matchacita’s Name Change
Walking down South Street in downtown Kalamazoo, it’s hard to miss the bright red “OPEN” sign at Matchacita. It stands out, nestled between an eye care center and a plant nursery. But you might have recently noticed something else—a new name.
“We got a cease and desist from another matcha café, which also has the name Matcha Cita,” owner Yazmine Vargas Root said.
Vargas Root and her husband, Tyler, opened their Matchacita brick-and-mortar on South Street in 2024, but they originally launched the matcha-centered café in 2022 at the Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market. Matcha is a finely ground powder of green tea. “We saw a market and went for it,” she said.
Vargas Root, who was born and raised in Kalamazoo, had dreamed of opening a café since she was a child.
“I remember going to Mexico one year. We went to this woman’s house for breakfast and…whatever was on the menu, you ate. I wanted to bring that back here,” she said.
The name Matchacita was rooted in family from the beginning. “Matchacita came from an inside joke between my mom and me,” Vargas Root said. “We love chisme, which is gossip in Spanish. So we would say, ‘Vamos a un cafecito y chisme.’ We would go get a little coffee and have a little gossip.”
That made the cease-and-desist letter she received from a Chicago café even more difficult.
“When I first received the letter, it was a little heartbreaking and really discouraging,” Vargas Root said.
“I love Matchacita and what it meant to me—how it paid homage to my mom,” she said. “To feel like I had to let it go was heart-wrenching, honestly.”
Her next step was to consult a local lawyer who specializes in copyright and trademark law to discuss their options.
“Matchacita is in a different language and has a different meaning than if we were in a predominantly Spanish-speaking country, but unfortunately that doesn’t carry much weight here,” she said.
The couple weighed their options.
“He recommended that it would be in our best interest as business owners to just change the name. You’ll save money, because there’s a high chance you’ll lose.”
