A Midwestern chain told Hawaiians to stop using ‘Aloha’ with ‘Poke,’ igniting a heated debate

The letter came to Jeffery Sampson's home outside of Honolulu in January, with a return address for a law office on the 36th floor of a building in Chicago.The lawyers with the firm represented a company from the city, the Aloha Poke Co., that had jumped on one of the latest food trends - selling the Hawaiian staple poke, made from raw marinated ahi tuna - in 2016 and quickly expanded their reach to more than a dozen locations in Chicago and cities such as Milwaukee, Denver, and Washington D.C.S