Lake Worth, FL – Secret to ‘Brooklynized’ Drinking Water at Center of Lawsuits

Lake Worth, FL – Some New Yorkers swear the secret to their city’s great bagels and pizza is the water used in the dough — water that flows from clear reservoirs upstate right to their faucets.

It’s a belief that now has two Palm Beach County restaurants locked in a legal battle involving technology they claim can make water out of the tap here in South Florida taste like New York City drinking water.

The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. in Delray Beach is accusing Mamma Mia’s Trattoria & Brick Oven Pizzeria in Lake Worth of misappropriating technology developed by the bagel restaurant to “Brooklynize” its water.

In response, Mamma Mia’s alleges the Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. is illegally claiming it has patented a filtering process to re-create New York City water in an attempt to ward off competitors.

Neither restaurant is backing down. The bagel company is suing Mamma Mia’s in state court in Palm Beach County , while the pizzeria has filed a lawsuit of its own at the West Palm Beach federal courthouse.

New York City’s drinking water has long been a source of civic pride and is so pure the city isn’t required to filter it.

“It doesn’t surprise us that people want to imitate the quality of New York City water because it is clean, delicious and it is of the highest quality,” said Michael Saucier, a spokesman for New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection.

The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. opened in August 2009, touting its water filtration system. Customers walking into the South Military Trail restaurant can look through a glass window and see the tanks, taps and other equipment used to treat the water in 14 steps.

“By the time [the water] gets past our system, it’s Brooklyn water,” owner Steve Fassberg told the Sun Sentinel after opening. “We make it ultra pure to begin with and then we reinsert those nuances that make it Brooklyn water.”

Fassberg has big plans for the Brooklyn water concept and has already sold franchises for new restaurants slated to open from Miami Beach to Beverly Hills. Outgoing CNN talk show host Larry King has signed on to be the company’s spokesman and West Coast developer.

Among those who worked with Fassberg in developing the Brooklyn water concept was his father-in-law, Donald Kurtzer. But Kurtzer left the company earlier this year, then helped form Famous New York Baking Water Corp., which touted its own system for re-creating New York water.

Fassberg’s company sued his father-in-law and the new business in May, accusing them of misappropriating trade secrets and trademark infringement. The two companies reached a confidential settlement in August in which Famous New York Baking Water surrendered its website to the Delray Beach bagel works and agreed not to disclose the older company’s secret water treatment formula.

But before that deal was reached, Famous New York Baking Water had already sold a treatment system to Mamma Mia’s. The Italian restaurant began advertising in June that it was the “first to offer authentic ‘New York Style’ pizza, using our unique water system.”

Once Brooklyn Water Bagel threatened litigation against Mamma Mia’s, the Italian restaurant filed a federal lawsuit, accusing Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. of threatening “sham litigation” to shut it down.

Mamma Mia’s attorney, John P. Kelly, argues that Brooklyn Water Bagel has been illegally using the word “patented” in its advertising because some of the patents involved in the water treatment gadgetry have expired, while others aren’t key to the filtering process.

“Mamma Mia’s intends to use the water treatment system it was sold,” Kelly said.

Brooklyn Water Bagel’s attorney counters that Mamma Mia’s lawsuit is an attempt by the Italian restaurant to hold on to a water treatment system the supplier had no right to sell.

“Could Mamma Mia’s have gone out on their own and inquired about New York water, gone to a water treatment place and installed equipment? Absolutely — free world,” said Ira Marcus, Brooklyn Water Bagel’s general counsel. “However, what they can’t do is use our property — what was wrongfully taken from us — and use it with impunity.”

Marcus said that as far as the patents related to its water treatment system, Brooklyn Water Bagel has relied on representations by the system’s manufacturer. As well as the patents, Brooklyn Water Bagel has trade secrets of its own it uses to process the water, he said.

“We have replicated the characteristics of Brooklynized water to make a superior bagel,” he said. “We could do this anywhere in the world.”

The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. demands in its lawsuit that Mamma Mia’s cease using the filtration system. In its dueling court case, the pizzeria argues the bagel business should be fined — possibly for more than $1 million — for wrongfully claiming the Brooklynization process is patented.

There’s no question that water quality plays an important role in the taste of baked goods, said chef-instructor Marcelo Marino at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Miami. He said, though, that other factors also make a big difference, such as the flour used.

Former New Yorkers eating breakfast Thursday at the Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. swore the bagels tasted like they came from back home.

“I certainly do think the water makes a difference,” said Louis Bruno, a retired school administrator living in Boynton Beach . “It gives it a consistency you don’t find in other bagels.”