By Rick Hynum
California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) doesn’t take kindly to pizzas bearing its name—at least when they’re promoted by a competitor. But the brand took an unusual approach to settling a potential legal feud before it got too spicy.
It started when L.A.’s new Anna Pizza debuted a specialty pie that was, in fact, meant as a direct homage to CPK. Which is why owner/chef Thomas DeSantis named it the CPK. It features breaded chicken, BBQ sauce, sliced red onions, mozzarella and fresh cilantro. Now mind you, California Pizza Kitchen first popularized the BBQ Chicken Pizza back in 1985, and it became a signature pie for the brand, especially considering that hardly anyone else thought chicken as a pizza topping was a good idea at the time.
In a recent social media video, DeSantis, who opened Anna Pizza in November, told followers that there’s a “lot of the food on the menu that we copied—quote unquote—from other people. We want you to know we copied it, so we named it after the place that we copied it from. Hence the CPK.”
Unfortunately, the moniker didn’t sit well with California Pizza Kitchen’s legal department. DeSantis received a letter urging him to rethink the pizza’s name.But this was not your usual stern, humorless cease-and-desist order. As of December 2025, CPK has been under new ownership, and let’s give those folks a little credit: The letter was actually pretty chill, even clever at times.
“Word travels fast in the world of pizza, and your barbecue creation has clearly been making waves,” the letter read in part. “Frankly, we’re flattered. There are few things in life more validating than discovering that something you’ve poured decades of dough, sweat and perfectly balanced smoky-sweet sauce into has become…shall we say…culturally inspirational. So when we heard that your menu features a barbecue chicken pizza lovingly referred to as ‘the CPK,’ we had a moment. A proud moment. A nostalgic moment. A lightly legal moment.”
The letter goes on to state that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but “trademark law is the least flexible form of friendship. And as much as we’d love to believe that ‘CPK’ now universally stands for ‘Culinary Pizza Kindredness,’ our attorneys (lovely people, truly, just not known for their sense of humor) insist that it still points specifically to us.”
Rather than issue a standard cease-and-desist threat, CPK went on, “we thought we’d take a more…artisanal approach.”
In short, change the pizza’s name, and all would be forgiven.
DeSantis took the disarmingly humorous legal threat in stride. In the video posted on Instagram, he displayed the CPK pizza and made an equally disarming confession—while also taking a pointed little jab at the chain: “They’re a little late,” he said. “While it’s good, it’s outdated, and no one orders it. So we’re going to take it off the menu. This is the last one we’re going to make…I’m going to eat it for lunch as a farewell because I love this pizza. But it can no longer be on the menu. They want us just to rename it, but we’re going to pull it off because it doesn’t sell.”
He then took the CPK letter and smashed it straight into the sauce-laden pizza.
DeSantis thrust the blade a little deeper in the text accompanying the post on Instagram.
“CPK, we hear you! The BBQ Chicken, what was once your most popular pizza and a favorite amongst mom and pop pizzerias, is no more! People are over it, we’re over it! The fad is over, so instead of just renaming a has-been, we’re gonna pull it to open up some space for something new and fun!”
Anna Pizza’s followers, meanwhile, quickly rose to DeSantis’ defense in the comments section, as you might expect:
DeSantis, a New York native, operated a wood-fired pizza catering service, called Fire & Wood, for several years before opening the brick-and-mortar Anna Pizza last fall in the former Gorilla Pies space on Burbank Boulevard. The menu features items like the Pepperoni Dreams (cupped pepperoni, mozzarella, fresh garlic, vodka sauce, Calabrian chilis, basil and stracciatella) and the Brooklyn White (sesame seed crust, mozz, ricotta, shaved Parmesan and fresh garlic). Do we dare to mention another pie called L’Industrie, featuring Pomodoro sauce, mozz, stracciatella, basil and EVOO? Because that name sounds oddly familiar, too…..
