Philly deli chain founders are suing La Colombe over canned lattes, Ralph Lauren, and South Korea

A Philadelphia couple is suing a Philadelphia-based coffee empire over sales of canned draft lattes in ... South Korea.

Linda and Myung Kee Hwang, the Center City couple who founded the Old Nelson deli chain, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia against La Colombe last month, alleging the company failed to adhere to an exclusivity agreement for the coffee-roaster’s name and products in the East Asian country.

The couple accuses La Colombe of boxing them out of sales of draft latte canned beverages, and assisting a direct competitor’s launch in South Korea.

La Colombe did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit says the Hwangs were early wholesale customers of La Colombe, the coffee-shop chain and coffee product retailer founded in 1994 by Todd Carmichael and JP Iberti. (The company was bought by Chobani in 2023 but continues to operate independently.)

Around 2010, the Hwangs “invested substantial monies” in the company and obtained minority ownership stake, the complaint says. In addition, the agreement gave the couple exclusive rights to La Colombe’s trademark and products in Asia.

In 2012, La Colombe opened a coffee shop, modeled after the Dilworth Plaza location, in South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, according to the La Colombe website.

Two years later, La Colombe and the Hwangs renegotiated the exclusivity agreement and narrowed it to cover only South Korea, the suit says.

In addition to the La Colombe cafe in Seoul and various pop-up locations, the Hwangs have a “substantial wholesale business” supplying coffee to high-end locations such as golf courses and other establishments, said Firouzeh Nur-Vaccaro, a Kim IP attorney representing the couple.

Then, in 2024, Ralph Lauren entered the picture.

That fall, the suit says, the Hwangs learned that the fashion mogul’s coffee chain, Ralph’s Coffee, was expanding to South Korea. A former La Colombe employee told Linda Hwang that the Philly-based roasters were “heavily involved” in Ralph’s, assisting with coffee selection, packaging and design, and product development, according to the complaint.

The Hwangs reached out to La Colombe to express concern that the relationship could violate their exclusivity in South Korea. The complaint says La Colombe refused to give the Hwangs information about the company’s relationship with Ralph’s and related new products.

“La Colombe has introduced a direct competitor to the Korean market that uses the La Colombe System,” the lawsuit says. “This constitutes a breach of the contract’s non-compete provision, as well as a misappropriation of trade secrets.”

The relationship further deteriorated in February, when La Colombe informed the Hwangs that canned draft lattes weren’t covered by the 2014 exclusivity agreement, the complaint says.

The lawsuit accuses La Colombe of breach of contract for excluding the canned beverage from the exclusivity agreement, and sharing trade secrets with Ralph’s as it directly competes in the South Korean market.

“La Colombe’s name recognition has been increasing in recent years in South Korea, especially with regard to the Draft Latte cans,” Nur-Vaccaro said. “So the Hwangs want to start offering the canned beverages, but La Colombe is obstructing that by saying that the Draft Latte cans are not covered in the license.”