Houston rapper Bun B has filed a lawsuit against two former business partners, accusing them of embezzling tens of thousands from his burger enterprise, Trill Burgers. The lawsuit filed by the hitmaker and his remaining partners seeks $250,00 from the former partners.
In a counterclaim, brother and sister Patsy and Benson Vivares assert they were instrumental in the restaurant’s inception, alleging they conceived the idea for the fast-food joint, not the UGK artist. They also said, as part-owners of Trill Burgers, they came up with the recipe for the prize-winning IG Trill Burger, which they allege has been stolen from them.
About Trill Burgers
The success of Trill Burgers was swift after the company forming in July 2021 as a pop-up restaurant. At the time, there were five owners: Benson Vivares, Patsy Vivares, Bun B, Andy Nguyen, and Nick Scurfield.
Immediately, the Trill burger, a unique take on the smash burger style, struck a chord with fans and started winning in various festivals and food competitions, including the “Good Morning America” best burger in the country.
Now with their brick-and-mortar store, Trill Burgers is even more successful, even breaking records by selling 53,146 burgers within its first 30 days. According to the rapper-turned-burgerpreneur’s social media, Trill Burgers averaged 1,771 daily sales in June. The artist says the company also made history by “breaking Dr Pepper records for their most used soda fountain machine in the United States.”
But within months of the opening, the partnership between the five started to crumble, local station KPRC reports.
The legal team for Bun B, Nguyen, and Scurfield, wrote in the August 2023 claim that the Vivareses misused $45,000 in Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo earnings to support one of their other ventures, a failing food truck business in the Houston area called Sticky’s Chicken.
The siblings left the partnership amid allegations that they used the money to settle debts with Sticky’s Chicken, the remaining partners claim. Bun B, Nguyen and Scurfield claim that by January 2023 the Vivares siblings had not returned the disputed $45,000 or signed a separation agreement. The trio is now seeking access to past account information.
This is to ascertain the siblings’ spending since the partnership began, challenging any potential further improprieties.
In the early stages of the company, the siblings managed finances for Trill Burgers, according to the lawsuit.
They were allegedly right on the spot, successfully managing various pop-up ventures, at the Houston Rodeo in 2021 and early 2022.
However, transparency reportedly waned post-rodeo in 2022. The complaint says that after the rodeo in 2022, Patsy Vivares sent a text stating that she used $45,000 of the proceeds earned at the event to help her family business.
“I used $45,000 of the rodeo money to pay for stickys. These bills were pressing & were threatening to shut us down,” the lawsuit reports the text as reading, according to KPRC.
In October 2023, the Vivareses responded to the complaint with a general denial, disputing every claim put forth by Bun B and the other partners. They demanded evidence supporting these allegations. The defendants also argued that their actions were justified under the business judgment rule. According to the siblings, the funds they purportedly utilized were reimbursable expenses benefiting the company.
Months later, on Jan. 5, 2024, the siblings made a counterclaim to Bun B and his partners, claiming that the “Big Pimpin’” artist was trying to steal, not just the recipe, but the entire company.
According to the Vivareses, Trill Burgers was their idea and they recruited Bun B to be a part of the business and be the face.
They further state that the three partners still associated with the restaurant are in breach of their fiduciary duties because they are operating competing businesses under the name “Trill Burgers” without their consent and diverting funds and resources away from Trill Burgers LLC.
In the siblings’ minds, they are the ones that have been done wrong and are still owners of the business.
“Let it be known: Trill Burgers was not Bun B’s idea, nor was it the result of his sweat, equity, or ingenuity. Patsy and BJ are the true heroes,” wrote one of the Viavareses’ lawyers Walter Beard.
“This brother and sister duo—recognized contributors to HTX’s dynamic food scene—made Trill Burgers possible. They, along with Andy, developed the idea. They, along with Andy, recruited Bun B to be its face,” the counterclaim continued. “And they alone—without the financial or operational help of Bun B or his eventual cohorts Andy and Nick—put Trill Burgers on the map. As accurately reported by PaperCity Magazine, ‘Bun B fell in love with the smash burger concept and decided to come on board the Trill Burgers team.’ 1 It was not the other way around. Bun B was invited to the party; he did not start it.”
Bun B has denied all of the allegations that the siblings have asserted in their claim about him stealing the idea and possibly the company.
Judges have denied the Vivareses’ attempts to restrict Trill Burgers’ business operations and a hearing has been set up for April to determine if the Vivareses claim can move forward.
Both the Trill Burgers partners and the Viviareses want their cases to be tried before a jury.