Home Care In Long Branch, NJ

The owners of the “Call Your Mother” chain of bagel shops have filed a federal lawsuit against “Call Your Bubbi” bagels in Ocean County, alleging a violation of trademark laws.

Daniela Moreira and Andrew Dana created the “Call Your Mother” bagel brand in the fall of 2018 in Washington, D.C., and have since opened 18 stores, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Nov. 18.

The lawsuit alleges David Mizrahi, who operates a coffee shop and Jewish deli on Ocean Avenue in Long Branch, began using “the confusingly similar ‘Call Your Bubbi’” name around March 2024.

Because the name is too similar to Call Your Mother, it allegedly violates a federal trademark law known as the Lanham Act, according to the lawsuit.

Mizrahi was not immediately available to comment about the legal action. A man who answered the phone at the business declined to comment.

Both Call Your Mother and Call Your Bubbi promote coffee, delicatessen and restaurant services on their websites and on social media.

“Defendant’s use of the instructive ‘Call Your’ and ‘Bubbi’ plays off of plaintiff’s ‘Call Your Mother’ marks and suggests that defendant is affiliated with, sponsored by, or somehow connected to plaintiff,” the suit states.

“Bubbi” is a Yiddish word that means “grandmother” and is used affectionately in many Jewish families.

The lawsuit states Moreira and Dana, “through relentless hard work and dedication,” opened “Call Your Mother” bagel shops in the nation’s capital, Maryland, Virginia, and Colorado, and have plans to expand to Florida.

“What started off as a small, one-shop operation quickly evolved into a multi-location, nationwide, beloved Jewish deli brand,” the suit states.

The lawsuit says President Joe Biden visited the “Call Your Mother” shop in Georgetown after his January 2021 inauguration, and the business has received numerous awards over the years “for having one of the best bagels in the United States.”

Over the years, Moreira and Dana registered the “Call Your Mother” name with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, court exhibits show.

Call Your Mother attorneys sent Mizrahi and Bubbi Bagels a cease-and-desist letter on Aug. 8, demanding they remove all “Call Your Bubbi” references from their website, advertising and marketing materials.

The lawsuit claims the cease-and-desist letter has gone unanswered.

In addition to trademark infringement, the lawsuit alleges unfair competition and claims the Long Branch shop has “caused irreparable harm” to the Call Your Mother business.

Moreira and Dana are seeking an injunction to stop Mizrahi from using the “Call Your Bubbi” name, along with unspecified monetary damages.

The State Health Planning Board sat through hours of impassioned testimony Thursday on the relocation of services from Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch to a new acute care hospital in Tinton Falls.

The public hearing, held at the Anne Vogel Family Care and Wellness Center in Eatontown, was nearly derailed before it even started by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-6th Dist., who objected to the size of the space reserved for the hearing — which drew more than 300 people.

The hearing was originally scheduled for Oct. 29 at the Ocean Place Resort in Long Branch. Pallone alleged Thursday the state moved the meeting to make it more difficult for people who oppose the project to be able to come.

“I have never seen such an outrage in my entire life,” Pallone said in a heated exchange with former U.S. Sen. George Helmy‚ who’s also executive vice president, chief external affairs and policy officer for RWJ Barnabas Health.

“You’re a United States Senator and you think this is okay?” Pallone asked, standing over a seated Helmy prior to the hearing.

Officials with RWJ Barnabas Health, which owns Monmouth Medical, said they planned for 250 attendees. However, when the meeting started at 4 p.m., there were still dozens of people waiting in a long queue outside.

Pallone later claimed in a press release that more than 500 residents arrived to speak and were denied entry. NJ Advance Media couldn’t verify that number.

“While I understand and appreciate the congressman’s comments, we do believe we provided adequate opportunity,” Eric Carney, president and chief executive officer of Monmouth Medical, told NJ Advance Media Thursday night when asked about Pallone’s remarks.

More than three hours after the meeting started, Mike Beson was among a handful of people still waiting in an overflow room for his chance to speak.

“I’m here to say that it’s an underserved area,” said Beson, a resident of Ocean Township.

Monmouth Medical, a 513-bed facility in Long Branch owned by RWJ Barnabas Health, plans to transfer its labor and delivery services, acute care in-patient beds and the hospital’s license to a new facility on the site of the Vogel Medical Campus in Tinton Falls.

The new 252-bed acute care hospital will be constructed in two towers, one dedicated to women and children’s services and the other to surgery. The facility will also have in-patient services. It’s expected to open in 2032.

There will still be a range of services available at Monmouth Medical after the move. The current labor and delivery unit will become a residential behavioral health unit. The hospital’s emergency department will remain.

The relocation plan has gotten mixed reactions. On Thursday, opponents repeatedly raised concerns about accessibility. The new hospital will be built about 20 minutes from the existing facility.

“You’re putting one more burden on people who can’t get around. I love the statement that was just made — it’s not that big a commute. My question is: for whom?" asked the Rev. Sue Mamchak, who said she doesn’t have a car and lives on a fixed income.

“It’s $18 to go from Long Branch to Tinton Falls,” Mamchak said. “Please, remember the impact of just the problem of getting there.”

A spokeswoman for RWJ Barnabas Health said Friday the proposal includes free rideshare service for those who need it.

Other speakers raised concerns about the impact the move would have on other hospitals in the region, such as Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune City, Ocean University Medical Center in Brick and Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank.

“The abrupt shift in population flow caused by Monmouth’s move would overwhelm hospitals never built to handle that surge, destabilizing the entire regional balance of care,” said Tim Hogan, president and CEO of Riverview Medical Center.

“For Riverview Medical Center, should this proposal go through in current form, we will have hard decisions to make, including whether it is viable to remain open,” Hogan told the State Health Planning Board Thursday.

Support for new facilities

But not everyone opposes the idea. There was a strong showing of support for the proposal Thursday from Monmouth Medical employees, members of the hospital’s board and others affiliated with the hospital. Many of them mentioned the need for updated facilities.

A majority of the hospital’s medical care is provided in buildings that predate 1970, with the oldest built in 1935, according to Carney, the hospital’s president and CEO.

On Thursday, Carney testified that an architectural assessment of the 13-acre campus completed in 2016 deemed the current location in Long Branch undesirable and near end of life for continued hospital operations.

“Should we stay in a building that will become eventually unusable or should we build with the future? My argument is we should go towards the future,” said Dr. Dmitry Oleynikov, chief of surgery at Monmouth Medical.

Other speakers suggested that Monmouth Medical pursue a third option that allows both the existing hospital and the future hospital to operate as licensed acute care facilities.

“It can’t be either/or,” said Bishop William Edwards of the Long Branch Church of God. “I believe it’s got to be both/and. Both sides make valid points.”

The move isn’t final yet.

The public can still submit comments to the State Health Planning Board via email through Nov. 20. The board will vote on a recommendation at its next meeting, on Dec. 4.

The board’s decision will then be submitted to the Acting Commissioner of Health Jeffrey A. Brown, who has the final say.

Corrie Francis Parks brings life to the inanimate through frame-by-frame manipulation of physical materials. With one hand under the camera and the other on the computer keyboard, her films and installations maintain an organic connection to traditional production methods while fully integrating digital technology. She is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Her book, Fluid Frames: Experimental Animation with Sand, Clay, Paint and Pixels, explores the tactile nature of moving malleable materials directly under the camera, bringing together traditional and digital workflow through interviews with contemporary animators and workshop-style exercises.

Artist Bio

Corrie Francis Parks is an inventor of animation techniques. Adopting an investigative studio practice where subject collides with substance, each project builds upon the discoveries made in the previous, making the arduous process of frame-by-frame creation engaging. The results of this studio research manifest not only in short films, but in expanded animation projects that involve projection mapping, site-specific installations, augmented reality and collage.

In addition to her award-winning short films, which have screened at Annecy, Hiroshima, Ottawa, Zagreb, and other major festivals around the world, Parks has created projection-based installations for Light City Baltimore (2016), International Media Art Biennial SEE DJERBA in Tunisia (2019), UnDARK Festival in Russia (2019), “The People’s Projector” at the Daniels & Fisher Tower in Denver (2021), and the Water Light Festival in Italy (2024).

Parks has been artist in residence at the MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco Foundation, subnet Austria, Fundación Valparaíso and Klondike Goldrush International Historic Park. She has received Fulbright Fellowships to New Zealand and Austria and is a recipient of a 2019 Maryland Individual Artist Award. Her book, Fluid Frames: Experimental Animation with Sand, Clay, Paint and Pixels (2016) explores the tactile nature of moving malleable materials directly under the camera, bringing together traditional and digital workflow through interviews with contemporary animators and workshop-style exercises.

Parks has been creating animation since her teenage years. She designed her own major in Animation at Dartmouth College (2001) and subsequently received her MFA in Animation and Digital Arts from University of Southern California (2006). She is now an Associate Professor of Visual Arts at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where she encourages animation students to expand their understanding of the art of movement.

For information on how your event can be listed,

3-minute read

They call it “modernization.” I call it what it is: abandonment. RWJBarnabas Health’s plan to strip Monmouth Medical Center of nearly all its vital services and move them out of Long Branch would take away the community’s safety net.

Hospitals are lifelines — where children are born, where lives are saved and where a community’s sense of security begins. That’s why what’s happening to Monmouth Medical Center should alarm every resident of Monmouth County.

Monmouth Medical Center relocation is a bait-and-switch

RWJBarnabas Health wants to move the hospital’s license from Long Branch to Fort Monmouth in Tinton Falls. On the surface, it’s presented as progress: a new, modern facility. But the truth is, this isn’t expansion — it’s a bait and switch that would gut Long Branch’s full-service hospital and leave the city with only a limited satellite emergency department, not a full hospital.

The original plan had broad community support: a new campus to complement existing services. But the revised proposal eliminates or relocates nearly everything that defines a hospital: the ICU and critical care units, all inpatient beds except behavioral health, maternity and birthing care, pediatrics, cardiac and stroke services and inpatient surgery.

The people of Long Branch are being told they’ll have access to care, but it will be miles away and harder to reach, with a ripple effect across the region’s healthcare system.

Who gets hurt the worst? Working families, seniors, the uninsured and the chronically ill — the people who rely on proximity and public transit to reach medical care. Expectant mothers will lose their birthing center. Heart and stroke patients will face longer trips when minutes matter. And many residents, already struggling to access transportation, will simply go without care.

We’ve seen this story before. When hospitals reduce services, preventable deaths rise and health disparities widen. Nearby hospitals, like Jersey Shore University Medical Center, are already near capacity and will be forced to absorb more patients, straining an already fragile system. Beyond Long Branch, the entire region’s healthcare system will suffer.

There’s no justification for this move. The Fort Monmouth site is actually closer to all four existing Monmouth County hospitals than the current Long Branch location, meaning there’s no demonstrated need. It’s not about better access. It’s about shifting services from an underserved to a wealthier community and putting profits over patients.

And the process has been just as troubling. The New Jersey Department of Health is treating this as a simple “relocation,” but under state law, a move that effectively closes one hospital and opens another should require a full Certificate of Need — the state’s safeguard to ensure hospitals are built only when medically necessary. The state hasn’t issued that call, and legally can’t until April 2026. Without it, this application shouldn’t move forward.

Even worse, the public has been systematically shut out. The first hearing was scheduled for Oct. 29 but had to be re-noticed for Nov. 13 because it was so rushed that they didn’t meet legal notice requirements. They also moved the location of the hearing from Long Branch — the community losing its hospital services — to Eatontown, five miles away. And it was being held from 4 to 6 p.m. on a weekday, when working families could not attend.

Every decision about timing and location is calculated to silence the voices of the people who will be most impacted. This is how communities lose their voice - and their hospitals.

Access to healthcare is not a privilege or a perk; it’s a matter of justice. Long Branch is one of Monmouth County’s most diverse, hard-working cities — home to immigrants, service workers and retirees who have built lives and raised families here.

I’ve spent my career fighting for fairness — in housing, education and access to justice — and I’ve seen what happens when decisions like this go unchallenged. Once a hospital leaves a community like Long Branch, it rarely returns.

NJ Department of Health must reject RWJBarnabas proposal

The Department of Health must reject RWJBarnabas’s proposal. It’s inconsistent with the law, unsupported by data, and morally indefensible. If RWJBarnabas truly wants to modernize healthcare, it should invest in both facilities as it originally said it would do — not abandon one to build another.

To my neighbors: This is the moment to be heard. Speak out. Tell your stories. Demand that the state protect this community’s right to care close to home.

Because once a hospital’s doors close to inpatient care, they rarely open again. And a community without a full-service hospital is a community at risk.

Long Branch deserves the same dignity and access as every other town. Let’s raise our voices together and make sure Long Branch isn’t the next to lose what can’t be replaced.

Lazaro Cardenas, Esq., is managing partner of Patel & Cardenas, LLC in Freehold, New Jersey. He serves as director of the Latino Coalition of New Jersey and is co-founder of the Latino Festival of Monmouth County.