Sad new for animatronic rodents everywhere today, as Variety reports that Chuck E. Cheese—truly, the Dave And Buster’s of restaurant arcades for children—has filed for bankruptcy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the company continues to operate several hundred restaurants in a carryout capacity during the quarantine—using the name “Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings,” for reasons we can only assume are at least semi-based in shame— those plans have presumably been stymied by the fact that Chuck E. Cheese pizza is not, in fact, very good, and mostly exists to get your fingers greasy so you can put some proper English on a Skeeball.
But the complete (and here-for-at-least-the-near-future) death of the children’s birthday party industry has not dampened spirits at the company, which would like to assure you that filing for Chapter 11 is just the first glorious step on the road to Chapter 12. “The Chapter 11 process will allow us to strengthen our financial structure as we recover from what has undoubtedly been the most challenging event in our company’s history,” the company’s CEO claimed today, issuing a statement that’s much more amusing to contemplate if you imagine it coming out of the flapping mouth of a dead-eyed robot mouse.
Facing competition from both D&B’s and, to quote Variety, “trampoline parks,” Chuck E. Cheese has done some aggressive rebranding in recent years. The company claimed it was phasing out its animatronic musicians, Munch’s Make Believe Band, a few years back; also, they started selling both booze and coffee, presumably because directly shilling Red Bull and vodka to parents trying to survive an afternoon pizza party with 40 grease-slicked caffeine junkies was considered a little too on the nose.
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But now where is Kevin Spacey going to get dates?
Bitch P. Leaze
McDonalds still have PlayLands, don’t they?
If you think about it, it’s kind of strange that Nolan Bushnell not only popularized video games, but decades later there would be a horror video game based on the chain of kids pizza restaurants he co-founded.
Man all the ritalin-addled 12 year olds addicted to Five Nights at Freddy’s are gonna have some actual history to care about now!
Slow, echoing clap in an empty room for that headline.
That’s the best headline I have seen here in a long time.
“Hey mouse, say cheese!” With a dry, cool wit like that, I could be an Action Hero!
“Hey mouse, say cheese!” With a dry, cool wit like that, I could be an Acti-
Who would have thought that our visit to Chuck E Cheese would be our best vacation ever?
Die Chuck E. Cheese! Die! Die! Die!With a dry cool wit like that, I could be an action hero.
“The” Chuck E. Cheese? “The” “the” the”?! Your German is atrocious!
Yeah, but I’m still obviously not evil.
Facing competition from both D&B’s and, to quote Variety, “trampoline parks,” Chuck E. Cheese has done some aggressive rebranding in recent years.I’m not sure why trampoline parks are such a popular option for birthday parties. Parents actually hate them. They make you buy specialized grippy socks for the kids as a safety measure. Despite this, there is still a lot of potential for injuries.The Simpsons are once again weirdly prescient.
I mean, that’s dangerous, but how many kids got polio from the ball crawl?
TF was that dad doing on the trampoline with his small child? A the park near my house they don’t allow anyone over 16 anywhere near the tramps and they make kids go one at a time so double bounces like what you see in these videos don’t happen. I thought every park followed these same guidelines for obvious reasons. Apparently I was wrong.
Early after college I was offered a decent job for the on site investigator job for a trampoline park group. What was weird was it was salaried for the job. I learned that’s because their investigator works 6 1/2 days a week handling all their shit. Turned it down. Pay was good but not worth all the stuff.
From what I gather from listening to friends plan their kids’ parties, places like Chuck E. Cheese are expensive – the packages don’t include much so either you end up with kids who either have to pay their own money to play games and get additional food or you have to splash out a lot of money to get the larger packages. By comparison, I used to run kids parties at another place and it was a one flat rate and all inclusive, and all you had to do was bring a cake. Additionally, my staff and I managed all of the supervising of your kids. I suspect trampoline parks tend to follow into that kind of realm – you now you’re getting x amount of time for your kid to play, all of the kids will be occupied for the entire time/you don’t have to make sure they’re not getting into trouble running around a kiddie casino, and you won’t look like the dick parent that expected kids to spend more money.
The “E” in Chuck E Cheese stands for “Entertainment.” So his full name is, “Charles Entertainment Cheese”
I could have sworn I heard that the “E” was for Evelyn.
but with a hard EEE, EEEvelyn
No. This is American culture, not British. Over there, his name is actually Charles Ashley Cheese.
That article title is just *chef’s kiss*. It could’ve been a headline used on a newspaper in a Golden Age-era “Simpsons” episode.
Congratulations….I have read many headlines about this news today, and that was by far the best version.
that psychic justin roiland called was right!
First generation immigrant, here. We went to Chuck E. Cheese exactly once, I recall, when I was under 10. But we went to the Sizzler many, many times. My gauche, meretricious first tastes of Mass Americana are dying, I tells ya! What’s next–Radio Shack?!
Did you miss out on the fine dining experience of Ponderosa Steakhouse?
Or Bennigans!
Bennigans was great!
Oh boy, Bennigans!
Say what you will, but their Jell-O and pudding selection was excellent.
When I was a kid, our backyard “picnic” table was a big, thick wooden one with matching chairs that we got form the auctioning off of our local Ponderosa.
radio shack has gone through bankruptcy twice, actually 😀
what will become of our sweet, sweet Golden Corral?
It’ll be replaced with a Golden Saddle.
https://tv.yarn.co/yarn-clip/b8cefa7f-ef62-46c0-b222-40a943846b8a
There’s this one shopping center near me that has been a part of my life since I was little. Used to be every store I needed was in that shopping center, including restaurants. Through it all, only one store has remained the same while every other place has changed at least once: Chuck E Cheese. It’s gonna be a sad day when I no longer see the ball pit and tube maze through the windows as I travel past.
There is a mall near me where a mass shooting took place. The mall itself was already fading, but the shooting sped things along. It’s still open. All of the anchor stores have left. The multiplex closed. Most of the stores inside have been replaced with local businesses or are vacant. Through it all, tho, you could always see the ball pit and the slide through the window of Chuck E Cheese from the freeway.
i insist on knowing the name and location of this wonderful establishment.
It’s a mall in Burlington, Wa. I think it’s called The Mall In Burlingame, WA or something. Just google it. There was a mass shooting, so it’ll come up fast.
Cascade Mall. I actually remember watching the CCTV footage of this shooting. Not sure why I did that to myself. Probably caught my attention because my brother lives in that area (and, incidentally, he was a first responder at the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando).
Man all the non-travel destination malls are dying. Kinda sad, but also not at all
You underestimate the appeal of ball pits and tube mazes to the aspiring restaurateur.
Leaving work everyday I pass a Charles Entertainment Cheese, and everyday the lights have been running on that operation with no one in it. Today after hearing about the bankruptcy I felt a little sad know that was the CEC I spent many a birthday party playing the Star Wars arcade game there being gone for the ages possibly. Although I did have the idea if CEC goes fully under can I buy that location and have all the stuff in it? I’m at the point in my career I’m looking at getting my twenty year house and the Mercedes, but instead of that you’re saying I can have that building with my own play pit and Star Wars arcade game? I might forego the house and stick to Fords.
‘Bank Rupt C’. Cruel, very cruel. Funny but cruel. How about ‘Chuck E. Cheese Goes Down The Shit R’?
For my ex’s 30th birthday I threw her a surprise party at our local Chuck E. Cheese. It was a good gag.
Well, no need to ask why it didn’t work out between the two of you…
My employees at a previous job kept arguing about where they wanted to go for our annual end-of-the-fiscal-year outing, so I told them to make up their damn minds or that’s where we’d end up going. I made good on the threat. Place was packed with kids, and in the middle there’s a table with a bunch of embarrassed adults. Got a phone call from corporate when I sent in the receipt.
I’m choosing to believe that Chuck E. Cheese is why both situations in this thread ended. You got canned for taking your employees there, the dude you responded to got dumped for it.
Joke’s on you. I was there for another year before I quit. But the company did go bankrupt back in 2010, so feel free to use that for your ending.
Oh shit we gonna get ourselves a real life The Banana Splits Movie happening, man!!!!
You all love to roast Hughes, but he’s the funniest writer on the goddamn site. Good shit.
It may be a regional thing but I don’t see how Dave and Busters and Chuck E Cheese are competition. They both suck pretty hard. Where I’m at we have Gameworks and Main Event which are both better food and game places. And if I just want pure arcade bliss there is Galloping Ghost in Brookfield which is $20 for all you can play on 700+ arcade cabinets. What Chuck E Cheese does do is provide a good place for kid’s ages 5 through 10 who may not be able to handle the louder and more chaotic “bar adds”
From a birthday party standpoint, I can see where Dave & Buster’s is a better deal if you really want an arcade experience (kids get a lot more and the party gets a lot more food than Chuck E. Cheese does). I commented above that I used to run kids’ parties for an organization and the biggest selling point to families was they did not have to provide chaperones and we would ensure that kids were occupied for the entire time for 1 flat rate. Comparatively, arcades in general require you to watch the kids run around and you’re really just paying for the food. You get a kid that flies through their tokens or whatever they use these days, and now you have to occupy them until they get picked up or spend money to keep them playing. I imagine Chuck E Cheese made the bulk of its profit in parties back in the day.
Depends on the Dave and Busters. The one closest to me has almost zero traditional arcade games. It’s all those ticket winning machine games
One of my first jobs (back in the mid 80’s) was CEC, I remember the package as at least pretty OK – it was something like (for 10 kids) two XL pizzas, a few pitchers of sodas, I think something like $50 in game tokens, personal visit from the Rat. I know they were already scaling things down within a couple years after I left, though.
Looking at their website, you now get 2 slices of pizza per child and some tokens, but you don’t get actual full pizzas where your chaperones can eat too unless you go with the biggest packages. Again, not too shabby. I’m sure for whatever the price is, it’s worth it. But I can see where Dave & Buster’s food buffet option can seem more appealing to a family and the interior seem more sleek.
Cutting the chaperones out of it is kinda cheap. It’s a party that requires minders, they should be included IMO. *sigh* Yeah, I’d go for the better food options that include ALL the guests, not just those too young to drive.
Chapter 11 is the first step on the way to chapter 12? I think chapter 12 is for farms…pets don’t do so great when they’re sent away to farms.
When I was little, Chuck E. Cheese became lame the moment I learned Jeepers existed.
Still laughing about the idea of somebody ordering pizza from a place called “Pasqually’s” sight unseen and winding up with a big, stinky Chuck E. Cheese pie.
Funny enough, back when I was able to order Grub Hub, they had both Pasqually’s AND Chuck E Cheese listed.
And if you’re sorting by distance, they’re almost always grouped together (for obvious reasons.) Just amazing.
I saw the headline and knew instantly it hadda be Hughes
Headline reminds me of the Onion classic from ’08: WaMu files for ChapLev
I’m gonna miss the YouTube videos of whole groups of sweatpants-wearing white girls in their twenties smacking each other while dozens of kids and parents run for cover.
Terrible News. Wonderful Headline.
I took my son to a friend’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese years ago. The toppings on the pizza were apparently pepperoni, sodium benzoate, potassium benzoate, and benzene.
*stares blankly*“That’s bad.”
Well, you gotta get your recommended daily intake of the “three benzes!”
Charles Entertainment Cheese is a RAT, not a MOUSE, thank you very much. Next time, do a little research.
*orders the roast duck, with the mango salsa*
This article would be good fodder for snark if we weren’t all currently teetering on the edge of the economic abyss. Trump’s gross mismanagement of the pandemic kicked the final leg out from under the remarkably long-lived, almost bullet-proof Obama recovery.
Graphic illustration:Also, 11/10 headline.