By Michael J. Tittinger
Daily Press Staff Writer

SM PIER — Pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp and potatoes ... boca burger?

It’s probably not the way Bubba and Forrest drew it up while scrubbing military latrines with a toothbrush, but the restaurant spawned by their movie character banter — at least its Santa Monica incarnation — has begun to welcome herbivores with gusto, if not soy-based gumbo.

Earlier this month, with a little prodding from city officials and one vegan ex-mayor, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Restaurant & Market unveiled its spanking new vegan-friendly menu to satisfy both healthy eaters and an obscure lease requirement with City Hall.

Worked into its original lease agreement was a clause requiring Bubba Gump to offer its customers vegetarian and vegan menu options, a small-print requirement that eluded even restaurant officials by the time its doors opened on the pier in November 2005.

“We’re fine with it,” said Paul Kajiwara, the restaurant’s general manager. “But I’ve never had any experience with a lease agreement like that before.”

Like Forrest might have said about the vegan menu, restaurant officials didn’t know they were supposed to be looking for it.

But former mayor and city councilman Mike Feinstein sure did — having been instrumental along with his vegetarian colleague, City Councilman Kevin McKeown — in inserting the original clause to satiate the shrimp intolerant. When paying a visit to Bubba Gump on May 6, Feinstein — a vegetarian since 1983 and vegan since 1986 — was dismayed to discover his menu options consisted primarily of French fries and a side salad.

So began the tale of the former mayor, the crustacean and the mystery of the missing menu.

Two days later, Feinstein was hot on the trail, looking to get at the meat alternative of the issue from within the city’s pier leasing staff.

“The conditions (of the lease) were that they provide options, and not just a side salad,” said Feinstein, known as the “vegan mayor” at the time of the deal with the new restaurant. “I was right.

“This is public space we’re leasing, and it’s more important in those spaces to have restaurants that welcome all of the public.”

Elana Buegoff, pier leasing manager for the city, said the stipulation that Bubba Gump go green was a first in her book. The confessed carnivore, however, soon found herself in the role of green gumshoe, charged with enforcing the intent of the agreement and seeing to it that the pier eatery think outside the boxed salad when it came to providing vegetarians with viable menu options.

It took some scrambling to come up with recipes, said Kajiwara, but Bubba Gump unfurled on July 15 three options and a complete printed menu for their patrons upon request.

“We’ve had a bit of growing pains, this being our first year, as we’re also doing breakfast, something else we normally don’t do,” said Kajiwara, who has been with Bubba Gump for more than seven years. “But we’re excited about it. It’s a new venture.”

Indeed, the Santa Monica location is the first restaurant in the international chain to feature a separate vegan- and vegetarian-friendly menu. The menus across the board are 98 percent identical, according to Kajiwara, with slight variations like gumbo in New Orleans, which is still a shrimp-based meal, but a nod to the local cuisine all the same.

In Santa Monica, a city comprised of health food markets, raw food restaurants and an unending line of joggers, requiring that a restaurant offer alternatives to animal-based meals, in the end, just might prove to be more of a help than hindrance.

“We probably only had requests for vegetarian meals once a month, now it seems like people are coming out of the woodwork,” said Kajiwara. “I actually didn’t even know it was on our lease until someone brought it to our attention ... but it’s going well. The people I’ve spoken to think it’s a home run.

“I know Mike Feinstein was blown away.”

As for the former mayor, known to Rollerblade to work when he was a city councilman, well, he was all smiles on his follow-up visit to Bubba Gump on July 15 — the first day of the vegan Gump era.

Feinstein and his companion, Cherise Leanna Bangs, who is working on a guide to vegan eateries in Los Angeles, went boca to the wall, ordering up each of the restaurant’s three new meatless concoctions — tofu fajitas, balsamic tofu salad and a boca burger.

It was green thumbs up all around.

“It was tasty ... excellent. I’m definitely going back,” said a satisfied Feinstein. “It’s not just some sad account where the restaurant takes out the animal. And since Bubba Gump is not known for it, I give them credit for not just coming back with steamed vegetables ... just taking away the animal protein and not replacing it.

“They made an effort. This respects us and our nutritional needs.”

This summer, Bubba Gump has plans to extend its reach with new locations in Hong Kong, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and CityWalk in Universal City. None of the new eateries are expected to open with a vegan-friendly menu ... but nothing’s written in soy.