Pier 39 chain restaurant is hollow imitation of classic SF spots

Shrimp is one of my favorite foods, but I’ve never seen so much of it at once.

Fried shrimp, coconut shrimp, tempura shrimp, steamed shrimp, shrimp rolls, a Bloody Mary festooned with a decorative shrimp. You guessed it: I’m at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., the world-famous restaurant dedicated to the fruit of the sea.

The San Francisco location of the cheesy restaurant chain inspired by the 1994 film “Forrest Gump” is tucked at the tail end of Pier 39. When I visited for lunch on a recent federal holiday, it was teeming with tourists and teenagers who had the day off from school. I wondered if any of the teenagers had actually seen the Tom Hanks movie, or if they were just there because it sounded funny.

I myself am not old enough to have watched the six-time Academy Award-winning film when it first came out, but even 29 years since its release, the pop culture references remain as sticky as cocktail sauce. Life is like a box of chocolates. Run, Forrest, run! 

As a child of the ’90s, I grew up hearing these references constantly, but never got around to actually watching the movie until about a year ago. To my surprise, the Bubba Gump restaurant doesn’t even exist in the movie, and is instead named after Gump’s wildly successful shrimping business. 

A year after “Forrest Gump” came out, Anthony Zolezzi bought the rights to the name “Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.” from Paramount Pictures in an attempt to save his struggling seafood company, Meridian Products. In 1996, the company opened its first restaurant on Monterey’s Cannery Row, followed by a San Francisco location in 1997. 

Today, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. has 22 locations across the country as well as 12 internationally, from Cancun to Tokyo. 

After snaking through the mazelike second story of Pier 39 searching for the restaurant’s smiling, top hat-wearing shrimp logo, my colleague and I were quoted a 15-minute wait, despite the restaurant looking nowhere near full. 

No big deal — the wait gave us time to poke around the Bubba Gump gift shop next door and people-watch tourists posing at the “Forrest Gump” bench. I’ve previously visited both the Monterey and Maui locations of the chain, but this was my first time going since seeing the movie. It definitely made the restaurant make a lot more sense, although I was now acutely aware that the movie hadn’t aged particularly well.

I received a text letting us know our table was ready, and we followed a trail of smiley faces to a sign that said “Stop Forrest stop.” As we were guided to our table, I tried to clock as much of the Gump decor as I could, but quickly grew overwhelmed. 

The film, of course, played on TVs mounted to the walls, but there were also tons of framed stills from the movie, quotes (“You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes”), and a map of Forrest’s run across America. Plastic life preservers and open-mouthed marlin swam across the walls. The slatted ceiling, neon beer signs and wood tables stamped with more Gump quotes completed the kitschy coastal vibe. 

The aesthetic struck me as a hollow imitation of classic San Francisco seafood restaurants like Swan Oyster Depot and Sotto Mare. While the signed dollar bills of different currencies pinned to the walls at Swan Oyster Depot curl at the edges from age, everything at Bubba Gump was coated in a phony layer of plastic. 

What was authentic, though, was the view. Floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the restaurant allow diners to gaze out across the bay at Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge and sailboats drifting across the water. It was breathtaking. 

Once we were seated by the window, our attentive server instructed us to flip the license plates at the table from “Run Forrest run” to “Stop Forrest stop” if we needed anything. We began perusing the loud, colorful menu filled with airbrushed food photos. 

To drink, I ordered the Lava Flow, a frozen drink made with rum, cream of coconut, pineapple juice and strawberry puree. The drink attempted to hide its off-putting beigeness with a blue-tinted glass, but it still tasted like a watered-down Tiki drink. To make matters worse, the rum was scant — it was $17, but I felt nothing. My colleague’s bloody mary ($15), which at least looked more festive with its shrimp and celery garnishes, was just OK. 

We ordered appetizers hoping they would arrive before our meal, but instead, everything arrived at once, resulting in towering piles of shrimp fated to go cold before we could consume it all. 

The Shrimper’s Heaven ($27.99), a selection of different types of fried shrimp nestled on a bed of fries on fake Gump-themed newspaper, wouldn’t have been so disappointing if not for the sauces. The cocktail sauce was serviceable, but the swamp-colored Cajun marmalade was cloyingly sweet, and the tempura sauce was also a few spoonfuls too heavy on the honey. Paired with the already sweet coconut shrimp, it made me feel like I was eating a shrimp dessert. 

The crab and shrimp rolls ($24.99) arrived on fluffy brioche with a filling of shrimp and crab mixed with creme fraiche, onions and celery, and a side of fries. While inoffensive, the dish lacked flavor. Unlike at other, better SF seafood spots, the simple preparation did not serve as a means to let the freshness of the seafood shine. The rolls were vastly improved, though, when I added a dash of the peppery Bubba Gump’s hot sauce sitting at our table. 

The only dish that impressed me was the Shrimper’s Net Catch, a half-pound of peel-and-eat shrimp steamed in beer and served in a tin bucket ($18.99). We opted for a mix of the two seasoning options — garlic and Cajun — but the punchier Cajun spices totally overwhelmed the garlic. Which was just as well — I preferred it. 

The shrimp was cooked to perfect tenderness, and the fiery, paprika-y Cajun seasoning was so tasty I licked it off my fingers. The overtoasted garlic bread we ordered to go with it at least provided a good vessel for mopping up some of the extra sauce. 

In her 1997 review of the restaurant, San Francisco Chronicle critic Maria Cianci eviscerated Bubba Gump on Pier 39, writing that the theme “feels forced” and that many dishes “bring to mind the term ‘fake food.’” Perhaps the restaurant has improved over its nearly three decades — nothing struck me, as Cianci wrote of a shrimp spaghetti dish, “truly gruesome” — but not by much. 

To me, Bubba Gump merely falls into the predictable category of mediocre, overpriced chain restaurant food (our total before tip came to $127.71). While I understand that trying new things can be scary, I implore tourists to take their seafood business somewhere local instead, where the fish actually tastes fresh. SF is a seafood city, and missing out on its best fodder would be a crime.

But if you find yourself at Pier 39 in the mood for a cheesy chain restaurant, surrender yourself to the Gumpisms and order the Shrimper’s Net Catch. As we left, a group of employees sang a lively happy birthday song to a beaming customer, making the atmosphere feel festive. 

If nothing else, there are those gorgeous bay views.