Bubba Gump Shrimp Co Rstrnt

Went here for breakfast on a Saturday and it was suprisely good. I got a scrabble and my boyfriend got an omelette and we both enjoyed our food. Skip the OJ though b/c it cost $3 for a small glass. Its a good place to take out of town guests and enjoy the scenery of the Santa Monica pier.

Pros: Good breakfast, great view
Cons: OJ expensive

As much as I'd love to say I enjoyed this particular restaurant, I could only do so if I wanted to tell you a big bold-faced lie. Let me state right now that I'm a fan of seafood, shrimp, Tom Hanks, movies, Santa Monica, restaurants, restaurants based on movies, and segments of movies that have clever ways of utilizing cgi like those in Forest Gump. Also, I had eaten at other Bubba Gump restaurants in California and had the best experiences. I was hoping to relive a fun experience at the one in Santa Monica, but that whole effort floundered due to inattentive staff and manager, sloppiness, and the continuous testing of my patience.
It was my girlfriend's birthday and so I chose to treat her and her two relatives out to dinner at Bubba Gump in Santa Monica. First off, the waiting time was ridiculous. Now, I understand that one has to expect to wait a while to get a table at a place like Bubba Gump, but what really made me wonder about the wait was the amount of empty tables and booths that were available when my party and I were finally called in. Plus, it didn't look like they really had a shortage of waiters since I saw several of them standing around and talking to each other. When we were seated, we noticed the table hadn't been cleaned. There were still bits of debris left over from the previous diner. Thinking that I didn't want to let that ruin this special night, I brushed off the surface with my arm. When it came to service, I had to almost call out a search party equipped with bullhorns in order to find or flag down our waitress. That little cute attention sign they allow you to display on that bucket did nothing. I kept telling myself that maybe the waitress was swamped with a ton of customers on the other side. But she proved me wrong when she attended a group of people next to us who came 30 minutes after us. Not only did she take their orders and chit-chat with them about anything under the sun, but she served them their food before us.

Pros: I got to rest my feet after waiting an hour outside.
Cons: Waitress barely existed, manager nearly scalded a child, table unclean

The food is terrible. My boyfriend and I went and got two shrimp dishes (figured this was the way to go since it is supposed to be their specialty) and drinks. The shrimp was over-cooked (chewy) and far from fresh. We couldnt eat any of our dinners. This is probably the first time ever we left drinks but even the drinks were bad! The server was nice enough but we were a bit surprised that she said nothing when she took our dinners away and clearly saw that we ate nothing. She didnt ask if there was a problem. I guess some people go here with their kids for fun. Maybe most of their business comes from tourists (its a very touristy area) because it cant be from repeat customers.

Food was good, wait staff was entertaining, and atmosphere was unique. A must if you're a Forrest Gump fan. I went on a Saturday night the first weekend it opened and it was very busy. The waiter was slow. They might provided better service now that they have been open for a while.

Pros: great food, good fun
Cons: service was slow

Typical chain restaurant. But the service was really good. I liked that you got to play trivia games with the waiters. A lot of time went into keeping the dining experience entertaining. From the signs for wheter or not you want your waiter to come and the light up glass with my drink that I got to take home. The food was okay, cocoanut and scampi pretty tasty.