The Pokémon-Themed Bar Event That Couldn’t Actually Involve Pokemon Anymore Is Cancelled

Any Denverites that still wanted to spend an afternoon at a Pokémon pop-up bar event that had been rebranded to remove all actual mentions of or references to Pokémon will no longer have that chance as Wonderland Events has, unsurprisingly, cancelled next month’s Denver Monster Burger Brunch.

“After much consideration, Wonderland has decided not to go forward with the relaunched event of Pokebar: Monster Burger Bar,” Wonderland Events representative Terry Adams told Eater Denver in an email Monday. “We felt that the rebranded event did not deliver the same quality of experience as the original event.”

The saga of the now ill-fated Pokemon brunch event began this summer when Wonderland Events announced it would be bringing an utterly Instagrammable pop-up bar tribute to all things cute, cartoon, and catch-em-allable to Denver and several other cities. According to the now-dark event website, there would be Pikachu-themed burgers and drinks as well as Pokémon-related games and activities.

However, that planned event was forced to, uh, evolve last month when Nintendo got wind of the organizer’s plans to use its Pokemon brand without its permission.

According to the Denver Post, Nintendo issued some kind of “unspecified directive” to Wonderland Events and event promoter Viral Promotions regarding their unlicensed usage of the Pokémon brand just days before the bar was set to hit Denver.

In response, all of the planned Pokebar events, including Denver’s, were given new dates and rebranded into the Monster Burger Brunch, a vaguely defined pop-up bar celebration of, well, some sort of monsters that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Pikauchu and the rest of his Pokemon friends.

But Wonderland, it is now clear, eventually realized that there can’t be a Pokémon pop-up without Pokémon. The (somewhat) good news? Adams said all ticket holders have already had their tickets for the Denver event, which had been rescheduled to November 3, refunded.

Eater Atlanta was the first to report on the cancellation of the touring Monster Burger Brunch last week.

• The Pokémon-Themed Pop-Up Planned for Sunday in Denver Has Been Cancelled [EDEN]
• A Pokémon-Themed Pop-Up Bar Hits Denver This September [EDEN]
• Organizers of the Ill-Fated Pokebar Cancel Their Generic Monster Bar Rebrand [Eater Atlanta]