A name from a film, a box of shrimp and a restaurant in Monterey.

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. is a brand that existed in a story before it existed in the world. In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, as English Wikipedia summarises it, the character Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue persuades Forrest Gump to go into the shrimping business. The restaurant chain takes its name, its characters and much of its decoration from that film, which was distributed by Paramount.

The real business began with packaged seafood rather than a dining room. Wikipedia says that in 1995 the entrepreneur Anthony Zolezzi bought the rights to the name “Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.” from Paramount Pictures as part of an attempt to turn round a seafood company, Meridian Products, and that the Bubba Gump line of packaged shrimp was sold in supermarkets. Tasting Table wrote in October 2025 that Zolezzi rebranded his seafood company after the deal with Paramount, and that the deal at first covered only pre-packaged frozen shrimp sold in grocery stores.

The restaurant came next. Wikipedia says Zolezzi was approached by a friend in the seafood restaurant business about licensing the name, and after consulting Paramount, the Rusty Pelican restaurant chain launched the first Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant. Nation’s Restaurant News reported in November 2010 that the first restaurant opened in 1996 on Cannery Row in Monterey, California, in a licensing deal between Viacom Consumer Products and the owners of Rusty Pelican Restaurants Inc.

Nation’s Restaurant News named Scott Barnett as the company’s founding president and chief executive and Gordon Miles as his partner and chairman. As the Bubba Gump brand grew, the same report said, the company spun off most of its Rusty Pelican locations to Landry’s, which owned several seafood-focused brands.

Tourist waterfronts, a licence and a sale to Landry’s.

The brand grew in places where visitors already gather. Nation’s Restaurant News listed its restaurants in 2010 at high-profile tourist destinations including Universal CityWalk in Hollywood, the Santa Monica Pier, Times Square in New York, New Orleans’ French Quarter and Pier 39 in San Francisco, with international restaurants in places including Bali, Hong Kong, Cancun and Tokyo. Tasting Table wrote in 2025 that the restaurants are mostly found in tourist areas, naming Times Square, Pier 39, the Mall of America and Universal Studios Hollywood among them.

Nation’s Restaurant News reported in 2010 that some of the international restaurants were wholly owned by the company and others were licensed.

In November 2010 the chain changed hands. Nation’s Restaurant News reported on 9 November 2010 that Landry’s Inc. of Houston had acquired the San Clemente, California-based Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. casual-dining chain, with terms not disclosed, and that the purchase included a lone remaining Rusty Pelican in Newport Beach, California. The same report said Barnett had stepped down as chief executive in February 2010, while Miles remained as chairman and said the concept would “continue to grow” under Landry’s.

At the time of the purchase, Nation’s Restaurant News listed Landry’s restaurant concepts as including Rainforest Cafe, Saltgrass Steak House, Landry’s Seafood House, Charley’s Crab and The Chart House, alongside hotel and casino businesses such as the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, and noted that Bubba Gump was the third restaurant company Landry’s had acquired that year, after Oceanaire Seafood Room and Claim Jumper.

Landry’s has owned Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. since 2010. Wikipedia says the restaurant’s headquarters moved to Houston, Texas, after the acquisition, and that the chain operates as a division of Landry’s, with restaurants in the United States and abroad. Tasting Table wrote in 2025 that Landry’s owns a range of casual and high-end dining brands, and that Bubba Gump customers can join the company’s Landry’s Select Club loyalty programme.

Tasting Table reported in October 2025 that the actor Tom Hanks, who played Forrest Gump, has no stake in the company, even though framed pictures and memorabilia of the character decorate the restaurants.

Design and documentation.

A restaurant brand is read from the road before it is read on a plate. Its identity lives in a building’s outline, a sign raised high enough to be seen from a moving car, a colour picked to stand out against sky and asphalt, and a name lettered on a menu, a placemat, a cup and a uniform. For chains that grew along highways or around a theme, the roofline, the dining room and the mascot can carry as much of the brand as the logo itself.

That identity can also outlast the business that made it. Restaurants change owners, franchisees rebrand or close individual sites, and a name can pass from one company to another or be split between different trades. A sign, a roof shape or a character may stay familiar long after the company behind it has changed.

Each guide below sets out who started the brand, where and when, who has owned it since, and how its name, signs, buildings and mascots have changed. It separates what independent, dated sources record from what the company says about itself, and marks plainly what rests on the company’s own word.

Film memorabilia, a table sign and a shrimp mascot.

The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. identity starts from a name the audience already knows. Wikipedia says the restaurants display movie memorabilia throughout the building, and Tasting Table describes framed pictures and memorabilia of the Forrest Gump character on the walls and shelves.

The theme runs from the walls to the table. Wikipedia says guests can play Forrest Gump trivia and can signal their server with a “Stop, Forrest, Stop” sign, a line from the film turned into a piece of service design; Tasting Table says customers flip the sign at their table when they need service. Dishes are named after characters in the film, Wikipedia says, and the menu leans on Southern and Cajun cooking because Forrest and Bubba come from Alabama. Tasting Table adds that the dining rooms are attached to themed gift shops selling merchandise based on the restaurant and the film.

The menu wording follows the film too. Tasting Table gives “Lt. Dan’s Pork Ribs & Shrimp” and the “Ooey Gooey Box of Chocolate” as examples of the character-themed dish names, and says shrimp — “the fruit of the sea”, as Bubba calls it — can be ordered barbecued, boiled, grilled, baked or sautéed, a list it ties to the film.

The brand also has a character of its own. Wikipedia names the chain’s mascot as Shrimp Louie, a shrimp.

For a design guide, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. shows how a brand can be lifted out of a film and built into a working restaurant — a licensed name, a waterfront setting, memorabilia on the walls and a line of dialogue turned into a table sign. Compare it with Bennigan’s, another themed casual-dining brand, and Howard Johnson’s, a restaurant brand built for travellers. For this guide we use boat navy, shrimp coral and dock sand with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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