Naming Places

Yes.

... unless you want to say "The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company is a safe haven for terrorists..." then you might have issues with the company...

Yes, it's perfectly okay to name real places. As mastrowork said, however, you might have problems if you have something very negative to say about the joint.

As a mystery reader and a Los Angeleno, I'm nuts about Michael Connelly because he uses L.A. as a backdrop. It's clear from reading his books that he knows this city intimately. It's fun reading about places you know and have visited. It just gives the piece credibility and gravitas.

For example, Connelly often has his characters eating chicken pot pie at Musso & Frank, a landmark restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard, that is famous for its chicken pot pies. Not a problem.

However, if you write for TV, it's a different story. I wrote for a daytime serial called SANTA BARBARA. The legal department had to check for every family name and business name and address to make sure there were no "real" people/businesses/addresses/phone numbers as the ones we used in the show. I doubt (although I'm not really sure about this) if we would have gotten away with naming an actual Santa Barbara restaurant though.

I've often wondered if Sue Grafton set her alphabet series in Santa Teresa rather than Santa Barbara so she could be less limited in what she was writing.

hehe.

My wife yells at me all the time for doing this.

There were two questions: "should I ask for permission to use the name and the setting or is it okay to include it?"

And one response, Yes.

As my wife asks, "which question are you answering?"