moose wall mount was one of several audio-animatronics found at Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse locations Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse was established by Edward P. Grace III, a
restaurateur who had previously founded Hemenway’s Seafood Grill in 1985 and
The Capital Grille chain in 1990, both in
Providence, Rhode Island. Drawing on the early success of The Capital Grille, Grace developed Bugaboo Creek as a more casual, family-oriented concept influenced by the growth of casual dining steakhouses such as
Outback Steakhouse and
LongHorn Steakhouse, as well as the broader trend of
themed restaurants in the
United States during the early 1990s, including
Rainforest Cafe and
Planet Hollywood. The first Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse opened in
Warwick, Rhode Island, in October 1992 under Grace’s company, Rare Hospitality International. The restaurant name is in reference to the
Bugaboo Mountains, a
subrange of the
Purcell Mountains in
British Columbia, Canada. The restaurants adopted an exaggerated
Canadian wilderness lodge theme. Despite the theming, the menu was oriented toward
American casual dining staples, including steaks, chicken, burgers, and appetizers typical of other chain steakhouses of the time. The chain expanded with a second location in
Seekonk,
Massachusetts, in August 1993, and moved outside
New England the following year with a location in
Springfield,
Virginia. In 1994, Rare Hospitality International became a publicly traded company under the
ticker symbol “RARE.” The company merged with the
LongHorn Steakhouse chain in 1996, making it its largest operating brand in Rare's portfolio. By the early 2000s, Bugaboo Creek had grown to 31 locations across eleven states, including
Connecticut,
Delaware,
Georgia,
Maine,
Maryland, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire,
New York,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia. After the Darden acquisition, Darden chose to keep LongHorn and The Capital Grille as part of its portfolio but divested Bugaboo Creek to
private equity firm Trimaran Capital Partners (via CB Holding Corp), which also operated other casual dining concepts such as
Charlie Brown’s Steakhouse. By the late 2000s, Bugaboo Creek was already experiencing declining traffic and sales, partially attributed to the overall decline of themed dining in the United States. In November 2010, CB Holding filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time of the announcement, the company had 12 restaurants still in operation after closing 18 restaurants the previous week. In July 2011, Bugaboo Creek was acquired out of bankruptcy by Capitol BC Restaurants LLC in a deal valued at approximately $10 million. The new ownership sought to stabilize the brand, updating menus and beginning to phase out many of the animatronic animal features that had originally distinguished the chain. In 2012, Capitol BC enlisted founder Ned Grace as an advisor to help reposition the concept. Throughout the early 2010s, Bugaboo Creek locations continued to close gradually, often without advance notice to customers or employees. On June 27, 2016, the last Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse located in
South Portland, Maine, was shuttered, marking the end of the chain. == Animatronics ==