Dodona Sheffield: New restaurant forced to change name and faces planning row over £40,000 terrace

A Sheffield restaurant must change its name and may have to tear down an extension.

Dodona - formerly Otto’s - on Sharrow Vale Road has been told the name is owned by a business in Barrow-In-Furness - and the boss is prepared to take legal action to protect it.

At the same time, officials at Sheffield City Council could refuse plans for a first-floor terrace at the premises on the corner with Steel Road - even though the £40,000 project is finished.

It is the second attempt to gain approval after a similar scheme was refused last year.

Dodona Sheffield owner Rendy Constantin said they would change the name of the restaurant. And he was hopeful the terrace would be granted approval and the restaurant open two or three weeks before Christmas.

Otto’s Moroccan restaurant closed in April 2022 after 14 years. In September last year Mr Constantin announced plans to transform it into an eastern Mediterranean restaurant called Dodona.

But Horizont Pllana, boss of Dodona restaurant in Barrow, said he had already trademarked the name. He had reported the trademark infringement to the Intellectual Property Office and filed a notice of threatened opposition against the business.

Mr Horizont Pllana said they had received CVs from people seeking a job at the Sheffield vebnue. And they had expansion plans which could be harmed by having another restaurant of the same name.

He added: “It would break my heart. We developed the name the logo and everything from scratch.”

Dodona is an ancient Greek town in Epirus and the seat of an ancient sanctuary and oracle of Zeus and later the religious centre of Pyrrhus' kingdom.