Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Seafood restaurant |
Founded | Monterey, California (1996 ) |
Headquarters | Houston, Texas |
Number of locations | 35 restaurants [1] |
Area served | United States Canada United Kingdom Mexico Mainland China Hong Kong Indonesia Japan Qatar Egypt (Future) Kuwait (Future) |
Parent | Landry's, Inc. (2010–present) |
Website | www |
Bubba Gump Shrimp Company is an American seafood restaurant chain inspired by the 1994 film Forrest Gump . As of October 2022, 35 Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurants operate worldwide. 22 of these locations are in the United States, four are in Mexico, three are in Japan, and one each are in Mainland China, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Canada and Qatar. As of 2024 the UK Bubba Gump Co. Division has permanently closed. The company is based in Houston, Texas, and has been a division of Landry's Restaurants since 2010. [2]
The first Bubba Gump restaurant opened in 1996 in Monterey, California by Rusty Pelican Restaurants in partnership with Paramount, 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.
Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. is the first and only casual restaurant chain based on a motion picture property. [3]
In 1995, entrepreneur Anthony Zolezzi bought the rights to the name “Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.” from Paramount Pictures in an attempt to turn around a financially troubled seafood company, Meridian Products. [4] [5] [6]
The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. line of packaged imported shrimp products were sold in supermarkets across the US and in international markets. [7] [8] Zolezzi was approached by a friend in the seafood restaurant business about licensing the name. Zolezzi consulted with Paramount and the Rusty Pelican restaurant chain to launch the first Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant in Monterey, California in 1996. [9] Its success led to its franchising on an international scale. [10]
In November 2010, Landry's, Inc. acquired Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for an undisclosed amount. [11] The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. purchase also included a lone Rusty Pelican in Newport Beach, California. As a result the restaurant’s headquarters moved from Hollywood, California to Houston, Texas.
As the name implies, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.'s menu consists mostly of imported shrimp dishes. It serves other seafood, as well as Southern and Cajun cuisine, as the characters of Forrest and Bubba were from Alabama. The restaurant offers dishes named after characters in the movie, like Jenny's Catch and the restaurant's bestseller Forrest's Seafood Feast. [12] [13] 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. The mascot of the chain is a shrimp named Shrimp Louie. [14]
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. [15] 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. [16] There have been many cases in the last few years in which the National Labor Relations Board found companies social media policies to be excessively broad, and ruled in favor of the employee(s). [17]
When actor Chris Pratt was 19, he was discovered while working as a waiter at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in Maui, Hawaii. [18] He waited on the table of actress/director Rae Dawn Chong, who had starred in one of Pratt's favorite films, Commando (1985). Chong offered Pratt a role in a short movie she was directing. [19]
Forrest Gump is a 1994 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Eric Roth. It is an adaptation of the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom and stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Field.
Bayou La Batre is a city in Mobile County, Alabama, United States. It is part of the Mobile metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,204, down from 2,558 at the 2010 census.
Red Lobster Hospitality, LLC is an American casual dining restaurant chain headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company has operations across most of the United States and Canada, as well as in China, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates; as of June 23, 2020, the company had 719 locations worldwide. Golden Gate Capital was Red Lobster's parent company after it was acquired from Darden Restaurants on July 28, 2014. Seafood supplier Thai Union acquired a 25 percent stake in the company in 2016 for a reported $575 million, and in 2020 purchased the remaining portion from GGC.
The Golden Nugget Laughlin is a hotel and casino located on the banks of the Colorado River in Laughlin, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Landry's, Inc. It offers a number of restaurants, 300 guest rooms and suites, a casino floor, and meeting spaces. The Golden Nugget offers water taxi service from Bullhead City, Arizona, on the opposite side of the river.
Captain Ds, LLC. is an American fast casual restaurant chain that specializes in seafood and is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. The chain was founded as Mr. D's Seafood and Hamburgers by Raymond L. Danner Sr. on August 15, 1969, in Donelson, Tennessee. The chain is currently owned by private-equity firm Centre Partners. Captain D's has more than 500 locations in the United States.
Landry's, Inc., is an American, privately owned, multi-brand dining, hospitality, entertainment, and gaming corporation headquartered in Houston, Texas. Landry's, Inc., owns and operates more than 600 restaurants, hotels, casinos, and entertainment destinations in 35 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The company also owns and operates numerous international locations. The company is owned by President & CEO Tilman Fertitta.
S&H Green Stamps was a line of trading stamps popular in the United States from 1896 until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelley Byron Hutchinson. During the 1960s, the company issued more stamps than the U.S. Postal Service, and distributed 35 million catalogs a year. Customers received stamps at the checkout counters of supermarkets, department stores, and gasoline stations among other retailers, which could then be redeemed for products from the catalog. Top Value Stamps ceased operations in the early 1980s, after which S&H would accept savings books for those left with unredeemed Top Value books, before S&H itself also ceased business.
In American usage, "Bubba" is a term of endearment mainly given to boys. Being formed from the word "brother", it often indicates that someone is an "older brother".
Gump & Co. is a 1995 novel by Winston Groom. It is the sequel to his 1986 novel Forrest Gump. It was written to chronicle Forrest's life throughout the 1980s.
Universal CityWalk is the name shared by the entertainment and retail districts located adjacent to the theme parks of Universal Destinations & Experiences. CityWalk began as an expansion of Universal's first park, Universal Studios Hollywood, and serves as an entrance plaza from the parking lots to the theme parks. CityWalk can also be found at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida, Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, Japan, and Universal Beijing Resort in Beijing, China.
Morton's The Steakhouse is a chain of steak restaurants with locations in the United States and franchised abroad, founded in Chicago in 1978. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Landry's.
Twinlab Consolidated Corporation is an American company which manufactures and markets vitamins, minerals, and bodybuilding supplements. Twinlab is based in Boca Raton, Florida.
Forrest Alexander Gump is the title protagonist of the 1986 novel by Winston Groom, Robert Zemeckis' 1994 film of the same name, and Gump and Co., the written sequel to Groom's novel.
Café Rouge is a French-styled restaurant chain, with 13 sites across the United Kingdom. Café Rouge is part of a bigger restaurant network owned by The Big Table.
B.R. Guest is a collection of fine-dining restaurants owned by Landry's, Inc. By 2015, BR Guest owned 15 large Manhattan places, including five branches of Dos Caminos, two Strip House steak joints, Blue Water Grill and Ruby Foo's.
Forrest Gump is a 1986 novel by Winston Groom. The title character retells adventures ranging from shrimp boating and ping pong championships, to thinking about his childhood love, as he bumbles his way through American history, with everything from the Vietnam War to college football becoming part of the story.
Tilman Joseph Fertitta is an American billionaire businessman and television personality. He is the chairman, CEO, and owner of Landry's, Inc. He also owns the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s Houston Rockets. Fertitta is chairman of the board of regents of the University of Houston System.
Shrimp and prawn are types of sea animals that are consumed worldwide. Although shrimp and prawns belong to different suborders of Decapoda, they are very similar in appearance and the terms are often used interchangeably in commercial farming and wild fisheries. A distinction is drawn in recent aquaculture literature, which increasingly uses the term "prawn" only for the saltwater forms of palaemonids and "shrimp" for the marine penaeids. They are the animals most commonly used and killed for food production.
The Universal Beijing Resort, commonly known as Universal Beijing, is a theme park and entertainment resort complex based in Beijing, China. Invite-only test operation started on September 1, 2021, and the full operation started from September 20, 2021.