After Waffle House warned Ruwa Romman’s campaign to stop using yellow-and-black materials that the company said resembled its trademarked brand, the Duluth Democrat is preparing to roll out a new campaign logo this week — and a waffle-themed video response.
Romman told PeachPol her campaign will replace its “Team Ruwa” branding rather than spend her limited campaign money fighting the Georgia-based restaurant chain, even as she rejects the company’s claim that voters could think Waffle House endorsed her.
“My first reaction was, ‘This is insane. We absolutely should fight this,’” Romman said in an interview with PeachPol. “But the reality is, there’s already such limited resources when it comes to political work that I would much rather spend that money on continuing to build the movement that we are working on instead of fighting with a corporation that has way more money than we do.”
Shortly after winning the primary runoff for Senate District 7, Romman received a letter from Waffle House Vice President and General Counsel Jonathan Waller saying the company owns federal trademark registrations for its name and distinctive yellow-and-black design.
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Waller said Romman’s campaign materials “prominently feature” the company’s letter style and would create confusion in Gwinnett County. Waffle House headquarters are located in Gwinnett County.
“Your use of Waffle House’s intellectual property for your commercial use or for political advantage of any candidate violates Waffle House’s trademarks, trade dress, and goodwill,” Waller wrote in the June 29 letter.
Romman rejected the suggestion that voters would think Waffle House endorsed her campaign.
“We do not, in any way, shape, or form, agree to their assessment of how any of this has gone down,” Romman said. “They are making the argument that we imply that we’re endorsed by Waffle House, which is patently absurd.”
Romman said the campaign began using the “Team Ruwa” logo when she launched her campaign in 2025.
“Our team had essentially worked on a logo that would, one, be pretty clear on T-shirts, especially at night because the yellow is reflective,” Romman said. “And two, was a creative way to just be like, ‘Hey, this is the team. We’re all in this together.’”
Romman said the campaign did not hear from Waffle House until after months of using the design. She also said the company’s official Instagram account liked one of the campaign’s posts in March before later removing the like after the letter arrived.
The campaign now plans to roll out a new logo in August.
“They have asked us to destroy all of our material that has the old logo on it,” Romman said. “So now we have to buy new shirts. We have to buy new punch cards. We have to buy new stickers.”
Romman said her campaign is planning to respond publicly with a video that leans into the absurdity of the dispute, including a teaser showing her being slapped with a waffle.
“They’re slapping us with a cease and desist, so we’re getting slapped by a waffle,” Romman said.
The dispute is small compared with the policy issues that dominate a state Senate race. But it captures something campaigns often try to do in Georgia: borrow the look, language and humor of the state’s most recognizable cultural institutions to signal that they understand the place they are trying to represent.
For Waffle House, that cultural power is also a corporate asset.
For Romman, the letter landed as a reminder of the imbalance between a large Georgia company and a campaign trying to build visibility with limited resources.
“At the end of the day, we’re not at fault here,” Romman said. “We do not agree with their assessment, their ask was: we ask that you cease, and so that’s what we’re going to do.”
But Romman said changing the logo does not change the campaign’s broader message.
“When it comes to fighting for workers and their rights and better wages, that fight will not stop,” she said.
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