Bubba Gump Shrimp Company


Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Restaurant & Market is an American seafood restaurant chain inspired by the 1994 film Forrest Gump. As of July 2015, forty Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurants operate worldwide. Twenty-nine of these locations are in the United States, four are in Mexico, three are in Japan, and one each in London, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Canada, the Marianas the Philippines and soon to be in Qatar. The company is based in Houston, Texas, and has been a division of Landry's Restaurants since 2010.
The first Bubba Gump restaurant opened in 1996 in Monterey, California by Rusty Pelican Restaurants in partnership with Viacom. Viacom is owner of Paramount Pictures, the distributor of Forrest Gump. The Bubba Gump restaurant is named after the film's characters Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue and Forrest Gump. In the film, Bubba suggested getting in the shrimping business and, ultimately, Forrest pursued the idea after Bubba's death in the Vietnam War.

History

In 1995, Paramount Pictures approached Rusty Pelican Restaurants Inc. with a desire to create a restaurant based on a theme from Paramount's 1994 film Forrest Gump. The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. was created as a result. Within a year the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. created a concept idea for the restaurant chain which was then licensed by Paramount Licensing, Inc. In 1996, the first Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant was opened in Monterey, California; its success led to its franchising on an international scale.
In November 2010, Landry's, Inc. acquired Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for an undisclosed amount. The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. purchase also included a lone Rusty Pelican in Newport Beach, California.
Like the name suggests, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.'s menu consists mostly of shrimp dishes and other seafood, as well as Southern and Cajun cuisine. The restaurant offers dishes named after characters in the movie, like Jenny's Catch and the restaurant's bestseller Forrest's Seafood Feast. Restaurants display movie memorabilia throughout the restaurant. Guests can play Forrest Gump movie trivia and can signal their waiter with a “Stop, Forrest, Stop” sign.

Miscellaneous

Employee social media policy

In 2013, a former Bubba Gump employee claimed that the social media policy in the company's employee handbook had a restrictive effect on employees’ rights by prohibiting them from discussing their jobs online. In 2015, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge ruled that Bubba Gump did not violate employees’ rights as they did not explicitly prohibit employees from discussing job-related subjects, but only expected them to do so in a civil manner. There have been many cases in the last few years in which the National Labor Relations Board found companies social media policies to be overboard, and ruled in favor of the employee.

Chris Pratt

Actor Chris Pratt was discovered in 2000 while working as a waiter at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in Maui, Hawaii. He waited on the table of actress/director Rae Dawn Chong, who had starred in one of Pratt's favorite films, Commando. Chong offered Pratt a role in a short movie she was directing at the time.