The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company is an American seafood restaurant chain inspired by the 1994 film Forrest Gump, based in Houston, Texas, and a division of Landry's Restaurants since 2010.[2] As of 2026, 32 restaurants operate worldwide: twenty-one in the U.S., four in Mexico, three in Japan, and one each in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Canada.
The first Bubba Gump restaurant opened in 1996 in Monterey, California, by Rusty Pelican Restaurants in partnership with Paramount, the distributor of Forrest Gump. It was named for the film's characters Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue and Forrest Gump. Before his death in the Vietnam War, Bubba convinces Gump to go into the shrimping business.
History
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.[3][4]