Every BANKRUPT episode ever... Step one - Founder has a vision Step two - Founder works hard to build a successful company Step three - Private Equity Firm buys company Step four - Bankruptcy
As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight. Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes. The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades. The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.
@dancooper6002 Why do you copy and paste the same comment 20 times over and over again? Sure you can blame "bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies" as the cause but the fact of the matter is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) failed to adapt and evolve to the changing trends in society. Any company that fails to adapt, will die. Just some some companies still struggle to have a solid mobile friendly online presence in 2023, more and more of those companies get left behind soon to meet their final days. Any truly successful business cant just stop innovating and adapting to changing trends once they think they hit the top, or just like we see with Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) they too can quickly fall flat on their face.
As someone who has studied business and has a sister in childcare, if you cut corners in a kid-oriented business they WILL notice. everytime one of these companies tries to go "fancy" and "modern" and loses the magic, kids don't want to go anymore. That kind of thing has RUINED many a restaurant in my town.
Honestly this is true with adult venues as well. Malls generally got ugly and boring, current restaurant interiors and exteriors, and plenty of other public places suffer from having lifeless, uninviting atmospheres. Call the late 20's century tacky or loud in their aesthetics if you want, they were FUN or at least homey!
I feel like you shouldn't even need to study business to figure that one out. Idk... pretty sure there's something about knowing your target audience too, but it's clear the people in charge haven't spent much time with kids. All you need is a few hours to figure out what they want... and it's not modern. The parents probably want peace and quiet... so uh... stick to pleasing the kids. (As an adult, I don't want bland modern either...)
@@KingOfGaymes And it's still one of the most popular franchises in the world? Not sure if conclusions are being drawn based on nostalgia and emotions versus actual facts.
Kids growing up today will never know how it felt to be a superstar when you had your birthday party there back in the day. You were literally a King or Queen.
One thing that wasn't mentioned here is the amazing coupons that Chuck E. Cheese offered in the mid/late 90's, as well as the extra awards to kids for good report cards. As a single mom, those coupons for buying a large pizza and getting 40 or so extra tokens for my kids was invaluable!! If not for that, we couldn't have afforded to go there. But thanks to that, we spent many happy days at Chuck E. Cheese. 😀
That's awesome! I wonder if any places still give rewards for good report cards like that. It's such a good reward and promotes kids taking school seriously which is really damn cool!
@agr0nianTV I live in a smaller rural-ish town and that was still a thing when I was a kid in the 2010s! A lot of local restaurants and ice cream shops primarily, although I remember the video rental store participating too with free movie dvd rentals for all As on a report card! Those were good times lol
If I was in charge of Chuck E. Cheese, I'd rebrand one or two restaraunts and theme them back to their original 1981 design, complete with retro arcade machines of the time. A lot of their fanbase are now adults, so it would be a hit for both nostalgia and parents showing kids how the restaurant was like when they were their age. But what would I know?
I mean, it might be a hit for the adults, but it’s hard to say if the kids would like it. They might not relate with the dated arcade games or the animatronics (especially if they were like the 80’s). Although they’d might love all the climbing-sliding stuff, if they weren’t too scarred by COVID and fear of gErMs.
I 100% agree with the retro arcade games part. Those were always why I went to a Showbiz/Chuck E. Cheese. You have a birthday part there with a couple of friends and you all get together to play The Simpsons or TMNT and you got yourself an awesome time. BTW, I love how with RUclips's username revamp, your name is just @Larry. There are no other Larrys, just you, lol.
@@mariecarie1 Mmm I agree with this. A lot of parents today think that just because they had a great time with these things in the 90s, it means that it's universally fun for kids. Today you can buy fancier things than anything these arcades can offer in your local toy store. Personally I would love a retro arcade, but for the kids it would be very much a one time thing, like watching a black and white movie, or visit a museum.
Losing the singing puppets is not what killed Chuck E's It was all about the games and tickets. In the 80s the place was absolutely crammed with great machines for 1 or 2 tokens. When it started costing 4 -8 tokens to play anything, and home gaming got better, there was no reason to go outside of friend's birthdays
I'm not American I thought this was the obvious reason. in the past 15 years not many kids are going to be that interested in basic arcade games when they have hyper competitive endless mobile games and console games.
I feel like CEC could’ve easily capitalized on the absolute booming popularity of FNAF in the mid to late 2010s if they just kept their animatronics around, therefore getting revenue from people who want to see what inspired the series, sure it isn’t what killed the brand but it certainly didn’t help their case
Not only that but as well as the paper tickets. My location got rid of the munchers and just recently this customer screwed me over because some kid brought in 1000+ tickets and made me count them all by hand. But worst of all they were the impatient type
Recently went and you can imagine my disappointment lmao when I received a card instead of being able to get coins 💀… I was so confused. I will miss getting those small cups and filling them up with coins or searching the floor for tokens 😫
I remember as a kid losing interest in chuckecheese when they took away the tickets. Collecting the tickets and buying stuff with the physical ticket itself was so much fun as a kid. Digital ticketing took that magic away.
I remember that same feeling at the roller rink, having to fill out paper work to get a stupid card really took the magic away. Having those tickets spit out the machine and carrying them around showing your friends the long chain of tickets was the best part (whoa you got that many tickets from that game! I need to try it too!), not to mention grouping the tickets together to get the big prize. That one change effected the reward and dopamine hits you would get from the tickets.
One of the biggest mistakes I think was getting rid of the animatronics, people nowadays make jokes about them but during their golden years in the 80s and 90s when they were well kept and the company put effort into the shows and birthday parties, it was a huge draw for families because it was so unique and iconic, no other kids place had something appear so extravagant. Also, for the birthday shows, you could tell the employees cared and loved what they were doing. In all the VHS and home video recordings you see, all the workers had a smile on their face, were genuine, and had fun singing the songs and dancing which then rubbed off on the families, friends, and atmosphere of the location and it showed. In the 80s, 90s, and even in the early 2000s before its decline there were dozens of birthdays held there daily and every location was bustling.
i disagree with you: i always found the chuck e cheese animatronics to be creepy & ever since they announced they were getting rid of the animatronics in all of there locations, i was pretty glad by that
As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight. Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes. The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades. The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.
After changing owners so many times, it’s easy to lose the original concept and focus of what made a business great to begin with. The heart of the business gets lost in the transfer.
@donk8105yeah fr I used to shit in the play place and run it in but it just made it more wacky but then Elmo pulled up on my cousin and shot him with lazar guns and he’s dead
I was so excited to bring my nephew last year. He finally was old enough to understand arcade games and I hyped it up sooo much. We walk in the doors, there’s no fun climbing structures anymore, probably 1/5 of the games, and it’s not a fun colorful place anymore. The 5 year old came up to me the other day and said “I just wanna tell you bowlero is cooler than Chuck E. Cheese”. I was like I know kid I know
I had the exact same experience with my daughter. I was so excited to take her and the locations here are all sad now. The climbing structure & ball pits were so much fun and now they’re gone. The games are pretty lame and many of them were broken when we went. It’s dirty. It feels kind of gross. My daughter had an ok time but has never asked to go back. She prefers other places.
The facts that the tubes no longer exist is depressing. Growing up as a kid rushing through the tunnels and ball pits was a high I will never reach again
As a guy who used to work at a chuck e cheese I can confirm that the main reason was the tubes are too difficult to maintain. Cleaning those things of kid vomit and various other semi-fluids is a nightmare that no one wanted to deal with.
It looks silly now, but if you were a kid in the 80s or 90s, Chuck E Cheese was super fun. The animatronics were really cool, having an arcade in a pizza shop was amazing, and the pizza(to a kid) was good.
Thank you for this! While in college I worked for Showbiz Pizza, so I can confirm two things: First, there's nothing like having to make pizza in a (short sleeve) white dress shirt and bow tie to motivate you to actually STAY in college. Second, your description of an emphasis on quality was a real thing. We made all our own pizza dough from scratch every single day, then let the buns rest 24h to proof properly. We prepped all our own veggie toppings too from cases as well - I still vividly remember going through and cutting up cases after case after case of green peppers, and I still don't like them to this day. Everything was made to-order, from these and other high quality ingredients, and it was actually pretty darn good pizza. This is also where I learned that it takes about 7 1/2 minutes to make, bake, and hand over a pizza for delivery assuming you have a conveyor / blower style oven. Those things were great and very fast!
@@TechGorilla1987 We used to make cheesy/garlic breadsticks for us in the kitchen with the leftover pizza dough. If we had gotten those on the menu we could have made a ton of $s!
@@johnwilliams3075 That's the times when pizza companies, as you said, made fresh dough and let it cold proof for 24 hours. There is STILL nothing like dough treated that way. I used to frequent a pizza hut with my ex-wife. We never had to order or wait in line, we just sat, and Lynn would bring us our food in good time. I always got a pepperoni pan pushed back in to the oven the length of the peel for that extra crispy texture. They would also open a can of anchovies and run them through the Lincoln on an empty pan to crisp them up. Then they put them on the pizza for me. It was sublime. I spent a couple of years servicing commercial cooking equipment so I developed a fondness in case it isn't obvious.
Thank you for your insight! As a kid in the late '80s and early '90s, your point of view was really interesting to me. Among my elementary school, Showbiz/Chuck E. Cheese was sort of known for having the best arcades and tube slides while having some pretty sucky pizza, but we didn't care. The animatronics were pretty cool.
As someone who's into architectural design, especially vintage or historic styles, it annoys me how companies decide to make something all bland and boring because "modernnnnn", which is a problem thats prominent with not only Chuck E. Cheeses, but especially Mc.Donalds and many other prominent food chains. Like, the wood style of the 70s is oddly comforting and I'd even go as far as to say it's beautiful, like some elaborate cabin or lodge, and even the 80s, 90s and 2000s design were charming and had their own distinct character that the modern facilities now lack. Obviously some designs from those eras can become dated, but at least give the "modern" redesign some bright colors other than white, brown and muted green-
It wouldn’t be so bad if absolutely everyone wasn’t doing the exact same thing. I mean, I like muted color palettes and clean lines… but I don’t know who the fast food chains are trying to fool. A gray building and new wallpaper is not going to substantially elevate the dining experience.
@@TheTrueAdept Fair point, I just wish they did something that would make their brand stand out more, rather than generic family restaurant no.1,009,890. I just don't see how a gray building with occasional posters dotted around is gonna make a kid feel like a kid rather than an office attorney.
@@juliadagnall5816 Exactly! Most restaurant buildings and locations just blend together in this modern, boring office aesthetic with no distinct personality or eye catching elements. Like, Mc.Donalds in the 1950s and 1960s, their drive through restaurants were bright and vibrant, with large golden arches that served as a beacon and made it stand out from the neighborhood! And now, they pretty much just look like any other fast food place, no unique or fun character relating to the companies mascots or once elaborate branding, and the only reason you knew it was a Mc.Donalds was the signage and the very small amount of yellow. It may be cheaper and easier to do, but why would I wanna go to Chuck E. Cheese when I can go any other similar restaurant that has arguably better pizza and customer service?
Given the maintenance costs I’m not surprised that they decided to do away with the animatronics, but getting rid of the free attractions and the tokens was stupid. Kids love small shiny things, not boring plastic cards. And when people feel they are getting something for free they will, ironically, probably spend more money because the ROI is higher than if they walked in knowing they would have to pay for every attraction
Exactly, these greedy companies try to rip off everyone for every little thing. But when you feel like you're getting more value and it's fair you're more likely to go there and also keep spending and having fun because it's worth it.
Exactly. I took my two-year-old now three to Chuck E. Cheese’s and his favorite game. What is the games that you swipe your card and you got a token. But unfortunately, every arcade it seems is going to the plastic play cards. I think there’s only one arcade here in the metro Vancouver area in Canada. That is still tickets and tokens and that’s a place called jungle jacks in Maple Ridge. It’s sad.
As a person who LOVED Chuck E Cheese as a child, this is a heartbreaking story. But since becoming a parent since their last bankruptcy, I appreciate my local CEC because my daughter is absolutely OBSESSED! Luckily we didn’t get the complete modernized concept. We have the play pass now but the building itself is still old school, which brings a small feeling of nostalgia while making new memories with the next generation
It's always sad that every "rebranding" to "fit with the times" always boils down to "adults not thinking how kids will enjoy things". And even as someone who never went to Chuck E. Cheese as a kid (poor family, yaaaaay), this still made me sad.
I let out an audible groan as soon as Jake started showing the shots of the "2.0" designs. It looks like a really dull children's hospital, not an amusement center.
Went to DeWitt, Iowa to take my cat to the vet. They still have a classic styled Pissa Hut with the red roof, and everything is themed original. It was surreal to see, and was a breath of fresh air. O wasn't around back then, but I'm more inclined to spend money at colorful, tasteful restaurants like the old Happy Joe's in my town and that classic Pizza Hut. I hate the rebranding to depressing, flat colors like grey McDonalds.
@@GetDougDimmadomed I agree wholly. I really miss the dine-in Pizza Huts myself. Relics of a past long since to the wayside sadly. The dim lighting inside was so signature to dine-in Pizza joints and something I absolutely loved about them. Made it way more comfortable and enjoyable of a experience.
Chuck E. Cheese holds a lot of nostalgia for me and i guess it has come to what Jake said “the place where the kids that could be kids have finally grownup”.
That line hit hard fr tho. I had my birthday at one location every year and then one day it was just…gone. Moved somewhere else. Spider Stomp was my favorite game and now it’s long gone And I could tell in the years before the location moved that the animatronics were getting old because they weren’t moving as well as they used to. And the curtains that closed between shows, eventually they just stayed open.
Something that I've always found interesting is that from the '90s right up until they were discontinued, Chuck E. Cheese's animatronic characters had their performances programmed via a single 1.4 MB floppy disk that was swapped out on a semi-monthly basis. And I've heard that a small community of people have been tracking down these floppies and are trying to reverse engineer the code to work with Arduino-based robots, so Charles Entertainment Cheese and pals may have an unexpected revival in the future.
I find that just fascinating that you can run those animatronics off a floppy disk! I bet a lot of those old characters ended up in people's man caves to be sure. Anyway its ironic I bet if they opened a new theme restaurant in our town with animatronic animals the city would descend on it like locusts. They crave anything new and curious. And if the food was good the lines would be from here to Tuesday
I've always thought it was crazy that they abandoned the animatronics. It was such a cool and interesting concept, and obviously one that worked for some time. Especially these days with the popularity of Five Nights at Freddy's it seems like they'd latch onto that market as much as possible.
I think its even more crazy because they literally have (or had, depending on whether or not they've completely retired them) a rule where the animatronics would need to be DESTROYED when they're no longer needed, and alot of the animatronics that did survive only did so by chance. I feel it would've been better to actually go out of their way to put them up for auction since there are people who will pay dividends for them, or preserve them in some capacity since, like in a little museum dedicated to the company's past! Though there is a place like that already, and it's Smitty's Super Service Station, which is an epic 80's goldmine that's dedicated not only to Chuck E. Cheese's history, but also Showbiz's!
As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight. Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes. The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades. The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.
@dancooper6002 Why do you copy and paste the same comment 20 times over and over again? Sure you can blame "bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies" as the cause but the fact of the matter is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) failed to adapt and evolve to the changing trends in society. Any company that fails to adapt, will die. Just some some companies still struggle to have a solid mobile friendly online presence in 2023, more and more of those companies get left behind soon to meet their final days. Any truly successful business cant just stop innovating and adapting to changing trends once they think they hit the top, or just like we see with Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) they too can quickly fall flat on their face.
Same here bud I miss those ads. I went to one once and I went to my local one at a shopping mall for a job a year and a half ago. I didn’t get the job. It’s sad this company fell from grace, I do prefer Dave and Busters tho.
I remember going to Chuck E. Cheese as a kid. If you told me back then that the company would end on its knees going through bankruptcy within less than a decade, I would’ve called you crazy. Yet…here we are.
Man, Chuck E. Cheese back in the early 90s was epic! From the invisible hand stamps to the big cup of tokens and dragging a bunch of tickets, that place was pure nostalgia good times.
This is going to sound odd, but as a 10 year old in 1980, there was something great about the dark, slightly seedy, slightly sinister feel of the original concept. It gave a feeling of mystery, especially with the creepy animatronics. It was glorious. The 2.0 remake had none of this.
I agree. I mean back then we were all outside in the bright sun all day. Going to a cozy dark theater was a nice change. And it's less stressful, you kind of blend into the shadows and don't stand out. Your parents aren't watching you every second or have you on a leash like these days. You just ran around this giant theater with your friends and brothers.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia just recently put out an episode mocking a Chuck E. Cheese type amusement center and how it's become too safe and clean and not as fun.
As someone who was born a bit too late for the original CEC/Showbiz, I still noticed a marked difference in how much visual concepts of the late-70's-early-80's revolved around that kind of dark, seedy look. It was the same kind of look in films like E.T., in restaurants(Round Table Pizza kept it going for decades), and in commercial art like the backboxes of pinball machines or magazine advertisements. Contrast with the stuff from 1985 onwards, which is more "Miami Vice", or maybe "Peewee Herman". I'm pretty sure the explanation has to do with demographics: the late 70's are when Baby Boomers were really getting into their careers and starting to form families, and since they were the biggest cohort the dominant aesthetics were following them around, so once they started having the kids the look changed from mysterious and erotic towards brighter-and-cleaner.
YAAAAASSSSS!!! The 80’s dank! Such a specific atmosphere for our generation! Like entering this cacophonous dungeon of wild, flashy fun with seemingly endless potential…the fun was only limited by your ability to earn them tickets!!!!
The memories. Games, dim lighting, pizza, slides, ball pit, mouse hole tunnels under the stage, the smell of feet and cheese, etc.. Pizza time theater was the best version.
CEC was my childhood. My grandma took me there when I was 4, and ever since, we'd go every Friday night. I loved the place so much! I'd play the games, eat the pizza, and watch the animatronics. It was a nice routine we established! Me being Autistic made me super invested in the animatronics and even considered them to be alive and my best friends. They comforted me, basically. Growing up, I never had a lot of friends since I always struggled to make any. So, I befriended inanimate objects like cars, boats, my toys, and the CEC animatronics. Jasper was and still is my favorite character. He inspired me to learn how to play the guitar! When I got my first phone, I recorded the characters so I could rewatch their songs on the go. I started this in 2015 but had to stop in 2022 because the last location with a stage in my state removed their animatronics. That was a horrible shot to the heart, especially since I was still dealing with the loss of childhood location that I went to every Friday night. It closed in 2020 cause they couldn't afford to pay the landlord. It was like losing my family.. I've known that location almost my whole life.. My faith in CEC honesty started to fade even before all of that, largely due to the fandom being so toxic (they bullied me and wouldn't shut up about the animatronic parts they somehow got) and the content that CEC creates getting horrible as time goes on. They stopped covering songs, changed the demographic to kids and everyone anymore, and they stripped the characters of their personalities and much much more. They made a lot of bad decisions with the entertainment, the characters themselves, and how they run stuff. I'm very ashamed of what CEC has become, and I honestly am very sad that I will never be able to look at them the same ever again.
Its horrible to hear the fanbase made you feel that way. I feel for you, people can be really rude when they like something too. They get defensive and become easily offended. Keep your chin up
@@averagecat4220 not always, but certainly most of the time. A few bad apples spoil the bunch as they say. Those people put a bad mark on the fanbase is all they’ve done. Hope they feel real big about it.
One of the most unique experiences of my childhood. Was so happy running around getting lost with friends doing whatever you wanted to do whenever and losing track of time. 98’ to 2005 was my last visit. The one here is always an empty parking lot. This is part of what made that era the golden era to me along with the greatest shows, games, movies, and early internet. I miss those times
Chuck E: I've got this perfect idea to bring people back! No more animatronics, no more tokens, no more tickets, no more old artwork, no more stage shows, no more colors, no more retro
I got to spend a few young birthdays at Showbiz in the late 80s and early 90s. That dark and dingey look was actually quite comforting, and my friends and I couldn't have been happier! That new bland corporate look is depressing as hell. I wish kids today could have the experience we had back then.
I remember when my local ShowBiz was turned in to a Chuck E. Cheese. It was so sterile, bland and aimed at a younger audience compared to ShowBiz. It is my opinion that this was the start of the downfall.
@donk8105 Ha! Man, we did it all back then. Not having a smartphone strapped to our faces worked wonders for taking risks, living life and actually enjoying it! Got the battle-scars to prove it.
It feels weird seeing Chuck E Cheese the way it is now. I grew up in the 2000's so i didnt get to see the animatronics in their great condition, but i loved that as a kid. It showed that other kids also loved this place i liked, i was always excoted to find a random token, wondering when id go back to spend them. Now its unusually bright, it doesnt feel like people go there to have fun, its just a brightly lit building with some games and maybe a play 'park'. It hurts but maybe one day they'll go back to their roots.
@@nightfuryobsessed5488I loved them because they were derpy-looking. Then, I realized they looked creepy. Then I got s little older, saw a video on how animatronics were built, and was fascinated by how they worked.
I'm an MBA student and even though I tell myself I hate my schoolwork, I always find myself watching these case studies in my downtime as I play video games lol
The Chuck E. Cheese where I live went from being a nice family oriented place, to being a haven for troublemakers. I started noticing this around the mid and late 2000s. Decent and well behaved families stopped taking their kids there to avoid problems and confrontations. As a kid who grew up in the 80s, it’s sad to see what happened to it.
This became true for a lot of locations. There was one incident in St. Charles, MO (look it up) where the mom of a kid celebrating a birthday got angry at the kid's father, and apparently said to the kid at one point: " you better say goodbye to your dad, because it's the last time you'll see him." Anyway, her current boyfriend showed up in the parking lot and shot the dad and grandfather.
I grew up with Chuck E. Cheese in the early 2000’s, and it’s sad to see how it’s changing. I’m gonna miss the old atmosphere, and especially the animatronics. Chuck will always have a special place in my heart.
@@ButterflyFeels well as a kid I didn’t focus on them too much, as a matter of fact I was scared of them, but as I grew up they started to be the main draw whenever we went. My favorite is Jasper and Chuck, and honestly I loved their dynamic chemistry. All of them had good moments in their scripts, and just seeing how they seemingly seemed alive made me develop a love for animatronics.
18:28 Peter Piper went downhill when the company acquired the brand. They added more seating, less games, bad quality pizza, and cheap prizes. The same can be the same with CEC, removed animatronics for an as$ dance floor. It’s genuinely sad the new generation won’t grow up with both brands in their prime.
I genuinely have no idea how Chuck E. Cheese could go out of business. I know it’s a generally dated concept, but every one I have ever been in over the last five years in multiple Texas locations is packed.
C*vid really killed a lot of businesses, especially those that already had questionable sanitation practices before those years. I'm also in Texas and every chuck-e-cheese I've ever been was dirty with greasy kid fingerprints on everything in there. The food was really mediocre as well...I think as a kid, chuck-e's is pretty cool, but for the adults it just couldn't appeal anymore.
As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight. Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes. The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades. The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.
@dancooper6002 Why do you copy and paste the same comment 20 times over and over again? Sure you can blame "bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies" as the cause but the fact of the matter is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) failed to adapt and evolve to the changing trends in society. Any company that fails to adapt, will die. Just some some companies still struggle to have a solid mobile friendly online presence in 2023, more and more of those companies get left behind soon to meet their final days. Any truly successful business cant just stop innovating and adapting to changing trends once they think they hit the top, or just like we see with Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) they too can quickly fall flat on their face.
My earliest memory is of being lost in a Showbiz Pizza. I was 4 and my grandparents had taken me there and in the dark, I couldn't find them. But I wasn't afraid because I was with BillyBob. A person in a BillyBob mascot suit was holding my hand and walking me around the place to look for my grandparents. And while I can't remember much else from then, I remember the absolute sense of safety and security, knowing that everything would be okay because I was with BillyBob and BillyBob wouldn't let anything bad happen. And that's the kind of stuff people need to think about when they have a business that tailors to kids, I think. That a kid can look at their mascot(s) and know that this is a safe person and it's a person they WANT to be with. Which means they'll then WANT to go to that restaurant/place/whatever and that's how the business gets that persons money and loyalty. Removing the animatronics, imho, was a huge mistake. Having the stage shows was a way for the kids to get to know the characters. Their personality, their likes and dislikes, and thus giving the kids an opportunity to have a favorite and so on. Kids are highly personable and if they get a favorite something, they'll nag and whine and beg and ask their parents for every and anything of that character. It's just another missed opportunity by the people in charge. Makes me wonder if these powers-that-be people ever consulted with someone or someones who have heavy experience in childcare and all.
As a kid going to Chuck E Cheese honestly it was a place to play arcade games . Wasn’t too expensive so I can see why parents would choose to let kids run off some energy. Late 90s early 00s were the best .
No better way to spend my Friday than watching another great documentary from Bright Sun Films…and about a seminal business that we all know: Chuck E. Cheese!
the thing i really hate the most with modern brands is the lack of colors. ive noticed a trend within all brands and companies, not just cec, that take their brand associated colors and mute them or replace them with boring beiges and creams. like this is especially egregious for childrens entertainment companies, idk who decided that the late 2010's- early 2020's was going to be defined by fuckin. taupe and steel gray. but i just wanna have a lil conversation with them
Yeah, that's puzzling to me, too. It makes sense that the residential "meta" right now is Coventry gray with white trim, but I don't know why they would do that with logos and brands.
"ultra modern minimalism" seems to be the ideal of modern society. Where everything is a beige, empty box. Boring, nonthreatening to anyone. Devoid of any reason for anyone to think your business isnt an available storefront.
You’d almost think the heads of these companies were some kind of lizard species and their eyes demand the changes to the logos and iconography of the brand so as to not harm their delicate lenses. Harsh curves and dull colors and simplistic shapes.
Bland sterile and emotionless, what they call "Futuristic". I f**king hate it! I applaud any company that dares to give this trend the middle finger and take the opposite route with bright colorful and lavish designs.
Oddly enough, despite news about this bankruptcy they still managed to build a whole new Chuck E. Cheese's near me over these past few months. It even got all the way to a grand opening without issues
Same here, it opened last year, I took my then 2 1/2 year old and was disappointed that the slides and climbing maze and ball pit etc... were not there, just the games. I was like, what happened, we have not been back. I can just bring her to Dave and Busters and have better food.
At every friend’s birthday party, my anxiety levels directly correlated to how close the party table was to any horrifying animatronics. Those dead eyes…those clunky, terrifying movements…
I was that kid. I was freaked right out, but wasn’t a cryer. It made my spider senses tingle like a MF’er though, until i left the table and went back to playing arcade games. I NEVER got too close to those robots…. Those potentially killer robots…
I chatted with a dude that worked on maintaining those animatronics. One story he told me was one day he was walking by the currently playing bears. Stopped and listened due to hearing something was off. If you ever worked maintenance or operating machines, your ear can easily be tuned to anything that is off and broken. He reach under the female bear and felt around a bit, came back out with oil all over his hand. There was this family sitting nearby, he said out loud, "It either got to be a leak or its that time of the month again." The entire family lost it LOLing.
If this is a CEC or Showbiz location you're referring to, I kinda doubt that story. Theres no oil used in those animatronics, only lubricant for the pnuematic parts. Oil would severely damage it
the worst thing about the new chucky's is how bright it is. The coolest thing in the 80's was how dark it was, it was a fun place to run around like a whole different little world.
@donk8105smoking had been discontinued by the time I was old enough to go (late 90s) but our CEC was still nice and dark and full of wild lights. It was great.
I do find infinite irony in ditching the animatronics because “kids like screens” or whatever right before the biggest friggin’ thing kids play on the screens is about animatronics at a pizza place. Imagine the money they’d be raking in if they kept them and then did some undercover marketing thing where people on fake accounts take TikTok videos of the animatronics with stupid text like “I swear it looked at me yall”
Companies: If we make everything a screen, people will want to come here! People: if everything is a screen, I can just look at it on my phone from home. I don't have to go there.
Me and my brothers had many birthdays at Chuck E Cheeses, memories that I hold dear. It’s crappy to see what it has become but nothing can last forever.
Never been to a Chuck E Cheese (I'm from the UK), but have studied Nolan Bushnells success stories. CEC was such an innovative idea and would have loved to have visited back in its heyday.
I had many great birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese’s, it was sad to see my local CEC close and I feel equal parts sad and nostalgic when I see a furniture store standing in its place.
Honestly, I don’t think they’ll last much longer once the last stage is nothing but mangled up medal. That’s the thing that made them unique. Without them, they’re just another pizza place. But CEC doesn’t give any sh*ts. Great video by the way
What a shame they never thought to capitalize of the absolute craze Five Night's at Freddy's caused. Imagine opening up a Halloween 21+ special where they transform the place into a haunted attraction.
I'm honestly surprised Chuck E Cheese hasn't gone the route of Pizza Hut, Burger King and Taco Bell and done a complete nostalgia-filled rebrand to rake in that sweet, sweet millennial cash. As cynical as I am about that stuff, I could 100% say it'd work in some degree (probably more older people than children, but hey that could be an excuse for said older people to drag in their child relatives to ogle robot rodents)
A lot of there history is gen x and millennials kids. That is when they did there best. They will be around as long as the kids still want to go. Mostly from those generations. Dad and Mom can tell there kids when they went there. So there kids will know about it.
The 2008 crash is what killed the brand's happy atmosphere. Before then, people had things to be happy about and would show it when they went places, even work. But after the crash, the threat of foreclosure on millions of people laid an air of depression on everything. Slowly but surely dragging everything down. People stopped truly enjoying life, and it really showed in places like chuck e cheese. The workers, under huge stress as most of them (much like my mom at the time) were worried their homes and cars might be repossessed and the bank may even go bankrupt, losing their life savings. Being a kid was just different after 2008...
…I’m pretty sure it was actually because people could no longer afford to go there, not that they *did* go there but everyone was too depressed to enjoy anything
Yeah it was different in the 80's and 60's and 40's and 20's and you just don't understand. Crap happens all the time and neither you nor the time was special.
I’ve followed you for maybe 8 years and the flash of you with a beard… makes me realize how time changes haha. I remember comments of people saying you laughed too much etc. Keep being awesome.
As a child who grew up there in the early 80s I can tell you what I loved about the place. MY Chuck E. Cheese was basically a dark arcade/play area. The dark lighting made the place seem bigger. The entrance to the arcade had a regular entrance and a kid’s size only entrance through the play area. At various birthday parties my friend’s and I would bolt for the kid sized entrance and go through the dark maze-like play area. The arcade though was the stuff: REAL video games not the crap ripoff stuff off today. The arcade usually had older kids in there so that made the place seem even cooler. Like, if the big kids are there, this place must be awesome. The last time I was in one was about ten years ago and it was awful. Brightly lit, everything was dirty and made of plastic, kids just trying to get tickets, spending ask kinds of their parents money just to get a prize worth fifty cents. Those stupid crane machines and other garbage money vacuums. If I ran the company I’d get back to making it a place where kids nag their parents to go to. Add some mini golf outside and maybe some laser tag and go carts! Make it a destination!
Yes, this! Bring back the dark Chuck E. Cheese that felt cool inside. My Chuck E Cheese in the 80's and early 90's had a parents room with a big projector screen. It was smokey and dark as hell. There were no windows in that huge location. Being brave enough to enter the giant theater where the terrifying animatronics might spring to life at any moment was a rite of passage for kids.
Yeah, it was similar to ShowBiz Pizza Place. The lighting was dim and it was practically dark in the showroom. I just don’t know where the marketing people got in there head that increasing the lighting would also increase the sales. The dark lighting was part of the experience. And this is especially true when watching an animatronic show
Its still so wild to me to think about how my younger brother and I, born mid 80s, were born early enough to enjoy classic Chuck E Cheese....and then be able to take our youngest siblings to visit, born 98 and 2000. When you think about it, the fact that Chuck E Cheese was able to have so many physical locations and evoke such atrong memories today, that has to count for some major brownie points.
I was forced to attend 7 birthday parties at my local Chuck E Cheese this last year and the place was absolutely packed every single time. The joys of parenting a 6-year-old. But at least in my area, it appears that they are doing well. It is sad to see it devoid of the character it had in my youth, though. It's essentially a big featureless dining room with a dance floor and video screens surrounded by arcade machines. It's very loud, messy and somehow sterile at the same time. But the kids all love it, so who am I to complain?
You can tell your age based on what Chuck E. Cheese you prefer. Personally, I hated the "cool Chuck" era of the 90s. And I loved the dark, seedy, pizza bar of the 80s. Going to that old version felt like an adventure.
I grew up during the Avenger years (2000s), but I prefer the early PTT years! It's less kiddy and more entertaining! I'm jealous of all those Gen Xers that got to experience it! ;D
Chuck E. Cheese went from feeling like a miniature Disney World to Dave & Busters for toddlers. I miss it when they used to market toward families of all ages like Showbiz Pizza did, nowadays you walk in and you feel like you've walked back into a kindergarten classroom or something. The animatronics will always remain a relic of the chain's glory days
speaking of newly bankrupted things i love, i'm excited for the christmas tree shops episode to come out at some point, me and my mom loved shopping there and it really broke her heart when it closed
They had the worst pizza. I never had my birthday party there but I remember going there for other kids birthdays. The ball pools and the games were the best part. The animatronics always freaked me out, especially when they would still blink and move while they were not playing music. An abandoned Chuck E Cheese with animatronics would be freaky as heck.
1989 was my 1st birthday at chuck e cheeses i was 3. Celebrated every year until i was 16. Thats 13 birthdays ill never forget. I still have gold tokens from 1994 and 1997.
Fun story. There was a chuck e cheese where I lived in the burbs. I have a friend who was a cop there and he said there were fights breaking out every night that it got to the point where they had to close it down. One of my coworkers went there and said its just a place to dump your kids at and the parents would drink because it was so bad. The pizza was awful, but the kids didnt care.
I super appreciate all the effort and research BSF puts into these videos. Chuck E Cheese was a staple of my childhood and later on when I became a dad. So this topic has special meaning to me. Thank you so much once again Jake. You never disappoint. Have a great weekend! 💚
While this is about Chuck Cheese going belly up, you glossed over the major decision in choosing Chuck and friends over the Rock-A-Fire critters, and that was the rights to the characters. That's a great story within the history of CEC, and was worth a reference in your explanation as to why they stuck with the rat rather than the bear and friends.
My local Chuck E Cheese was so poorly run it kept hiring more people, despite being unable to even put most of them on part-time shifts, so nobody could make money there
I find it funny that the significant revival in the interest of animatronic mascots with the advent of Five Nights at Freddy's and the mascot horror genre did absolutely nothing to save Chuck E Cheese's obsolete business.
it could be mostly because they didn't really embrace it, that and (if i'm not mistaken) a good handfull of locations at the time didn't have all of the animatronics if they had any at all
I think ditching the animatronics, right around the time that Five Nights at Freddie’s starting going viral was a massive error. When I was a kid in the early 90s, I thought they were super lame and paid 0 attention to them, but you better believe I would have been fascinated with them if I was familiar with FNAF.
For real and if they had somehow gotten Scott to allow them to use the characters they could have made horror related pizza experiences with the fnaf characters. It sucks that they didn’t try to do this in the height of fnaf being popular.
It wasn't a massive error at all its a game where CHILDRENs CORPSES got stuffed into A ROBOT blud you ain't cookin at all bro thats the last thing you want your company to be tied too lmfao
Chuck E Cheese was a great place to take our kids in the late 1980’s. The kids loved getting tickets and then buying stuff. I have such good memories of the kids just being kids. (Their slogan at the time). The animatronic show was fun, though it was the video games and rides that brought the kids in. The pizza was amazingly good - they put some sort of garlic butter sauce on it after they came out of the oven. So much better than the local Pizza Hut. We stopped going after the kids grew up a few more years and Chuck E Cheese wasn’t “cool”. Still a great time out for not much money and wonderful memories of our young family.
I’m not going to lie it would be pretty cool if they made a Chuck E. Cheese for adults, old-school video games and alcohol whole place designed for not kids but the big kids 🤣
In a few Texas cities there’s a place called Cidercade- it’s a cider brewery and old school arcade combo. You pay $10 to get in and it’s free to play as many games as you want, you only have to pay for drinks. Idk if they’ve expanded beyond Texas but if there’s one near you, I’d definitely recommend.
The dark-and-dingy look was a feature, not a bug. If it it's not dark, dingy and windowless, it's not Chuck E. Cheese. I was a kid going to CEC in the 80s and that's how I fondly remember it. All of the shots in this video of brightly-lit stores are unrecognizable and charmless.
I’d love to see a video on David’s Bridal. Weird company, so many bankruptcies. I worked there for a year while they were going through it and the policy changes pay changes and other changes were bizarre.
I will never forget all the magical moments I gave to kids who are adults today, both in the costume and later in management and later in corporate.... As a side note, it wasn't a matter of "expense". It was how seriously the people who ran those locations took it.
These videos are incredible. This is why I like youtube. Say what you will, but they create opportunities for me to learn so much for so little, and they support their creaters
As someone who works in the liquidation space with companies that go bankrupt, i really enjoy this series and seeing why these businesses fail. I'd love to see a video about Big Lots
Chuck E Cheez reminds me of one of those less popular casinos in Laughlin. Just depressing, you only went in to use the bathroom, and you feel a little guilty and obligated to buy something.
In 1996 I had my 10th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. My mom forced me to invite my entire class from school. Neither of my close friends outside of school could come. The pizza was okay. When the staff came out to sing happy birthday to me, they had zero enthusiasm and had a choreographed dance that they couldn't remember. Knowing what I know now about what it was like to work there, they were likely exhausted. But as a kid I was a tad disappointed. I took it as them not giving a crap. None of the kids I invited wanted to play with me, which made sense since they all bullied me in one way or another at school. I ended up falling in the ballpit and several kids trampled me. The arcade games were never available cause kids were always on them, and there were a few that weren't working. I don't remember much else besides being miserable the whole time because nothing had been fun. I vowed to never go there again after that.
If they go back to their roots and maybe form some partnership/rebranding or collaboration with Five Nights at Freddy's, I think there can be some widespread appeal. Going to Chuck E Cheese's was always a reward when I was younger and feeding my tickets to the ticket monster and redeeming them for mediocre prizes was a blast! Appreciate the entertaining history lesson and walk down memory lane!
IDK about year round as it might be a bit niche, but I feel like a Halloween spooktacular making the animatronics extra creepy aimed more at teens, young adults, and millennials? That would be pretty dope ngl
I think every kid growing up in the early and mid 00’s had at least 1 birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, myself included. Definitely felt some nostalgia seeing those commercials and videos of the old Chuck E Cheese
I have to say how funny it is that I’m New Mexico almost all the Chuck E. Cheese locations are still there, but it’s because they never got remodeled there’s still the same old model with the old mascot who was the rat. I just think it’s really interesting to see.
That's quite a history for this company. I never would have known as a little kid that this company actually went bankrupt for the first time ten years before I was born, because it felt like they were on top of the world when I was growing up in the late 90's/early 2000's. It seems like right around the time I was getting a bit too old for Chuck E. Cheese is when they began to have their current struggles. My generation is perhaps the last to have any sort of connection with the more tangible, analog past that defined the second half of the 20th century with its ball pits, animatronics, climbable tube structures, etc. whereas today's kids have grown up in a primarily digital, screen-based world where everything they want is on their iPad. It seems like the company is shooting themselves in the foot by removing those more tangible features in favor of more screens and removing all of the bright rainbow colors in favor of more neutral, minimalist tones. Kids are going to feel like what's the point of going if they already own touch screens themselves and adopting these more drab colors will make kids feel like they're being dragged to the dentist rather than having fun. It could also be the case I saw in another comment that the conditions that made Chuck E. Cheese successful 20-30 years ago have completely changed and there's no longer as much of a middle class that can afford to go to these sorts of places as often as back then. Also undergoing a leveraged buyout at a time when you're already struggling is a recipe for disaster as we've seen time and time again on this channel along with a global pandemic preventing people from congregating at any one place is really quite the cherry on top. Quite frankly I'm a bit astonished that they're still around at all given all of these factors, we'll see how much longer they persist into the future.
90s to early 2000s Chuck E Cheese's was the golden era of the company they were on top of the world while still having positive relationships with the comsumer. im glad i grew up during that time i had many parties at my local location (which to this day hasnt been changed since the 90s) and i attended many parties at other locations i still have a jar full of those tokens
Every BANKRUPT episode ever...
Step one - Founder has a vision
Step two - Founder works hard to build a successful company
Step three - Private Equity Firm buys company
Step four - Bankruptcy
As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight.
Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes.
The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades.
The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.
Don't forget the mouse getting busted for possession in the mid 00s🐭💊
@dancooper6002 Why do you copy and paste the same comment 20 times over and over again? Sure you can blame "bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies" as the cause but the fact of the matter is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) failed to adapt and evolve to the changing trends in society. Any company that fails to adapt, will die. Just some some companies still struggle to have a solid mobile friendly online presence in 2023, more and more of those companies get left behind soon to meet their final days. Any truly successful business cant just stop innovating and adapting to changing trends once they think they hit the top, or just like we see with Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) they too can quickly fall flat on their face.
Somewhere in there is usually also 2008 and/or rich people having no idea what’s relevant lol
you forgot the part where rapid expansion before economic downturn
As someone who has studied business and has a sister in childcare, if you cut corners in a kid-oriented business they WILL notice. everytime one of these companies tries to go "fancy" and "modern" and loses the magic, kids don't want to go anymore. That kind of thing has RUINED many a restaurant in my town.
Honestly this is true with adult venues as well. Malls generally got ugly and boring, current restaurant interiors and exteriors, and plenty of other public places suffer from having lifeless, uninviting atmospheres. Call the late 20's century tacky or loud in their aesthetics if you want, they were FUN or at least homey!
@@0annonymous man what kinda meth are u on
I feel like you shouldn't even need to study business to figure that one out. Idk... pretty sure there's something about knowing your target audience too, but it's clear the people in charge haven't spent much time with kids. All you need is a few hours to figure out what they want... and it's not modern. The parents probably want peace and quiet... so uh... stick to pleasing the kids. (As an adult, I don't want bland modern either...)
Exactly I mean look at McDonald’s now, it’s just a gray building and it’s sad
@@KingOfGaymes And it's still one of the most popular franchises in the world? Not sure if conclusions are being drawn based on nostalgia and emotions versus actual facts.
Kids growing up today will never know how it felt to be a superstar when you had your birthday party there back in the day. You were literally a King or Queen.
I heard they used to sell cake and have a party room in McDonald's
Interesting.
(Edited), a hahahahahahaha
My son had a birthday party there, it was a blast !! 🎉🥳😃
If you had a birthday at Chuck E. Cheese, your local bowling alley, or Laser Quest, you’d be the coolest kid ever in school.
One thing that wasn't mentioned here is the amazing coupons that Chuck E. Cheese offered in the mid/late 90's, as well as the extra awards to kids for good report cards. As a single mom, those coupons for buying a large pizza and getting 40 or so extra tokens for my kids was invaluable!! If not for that, we couldn't have afforded to go there. But thanks to that, we spent many happy days at Chuck E. Cheese. 😀
That's awesome! I wonder if any places still give rewards for good report cards like that. It's such a good reward and promotes kids taking school seriously which is really damn cool!
@@agr0nianTV I know Krispy Kreme Donuts offers free donuts to kids with all As on their report cards
@agr0nianTV I live in a smaller rural-ish town and that was still a thing when I was a kid in the 2010s! A lot of local restaurants and ice cream shops primarily, although I remember the video rental store participating too with free movie dvd rentals for all As on a report card! Those were good times lol
If I was in charge of Chuck E. Cheese, I'd rebrand one or two restaraunts and theme them back to their original 1981 design, complete with retro arcade machines of the time. A lot of their fanbase are now adults, so it would be a hit for both nostalgia and parents showing kids how the restaurant was like when they were their age.
But what would I know?
Hello, you!
I mean, it might be a hit for the adults, but it’s hard to say if the kids would like it. They might not relate with the dated arcade games or the animatronics (especially if they were like the 80’s). Although they’d might love all the climbing-sliding stuff, if they weren’t too scarred by COVID and fear of gErMs.
I 100% agree with the retro arcade games part. Those were always why I went to a Showbiz/Chuck E. Cheese. You have a birthday part there with a couple of friends and you all get together to play The Simpsons or TMNT and you got yourself an awesome time.
BTW, I love how with RUclips's username revamp, your name is just @Larry. There are no other Larrys, just you, lol.
@@mariecarie1 Mmm I agree with this. A lot of parents today think that just because they had a great time with these things in the 90s, it means that it's universally fun for kids. Today you can buy fancier things than anything these arcades can offer in your local toy store. Personally I would love a retro arcade, but for the kids it would be very much a one time thing, like watching a black and white movie, or visit a museum.
Given how FNAF is so big these days theming it like the 80s would either work well or very poorly lol
Losing the singing puppets is not what killed Chuck E's
It was all about the games and tickets.
In the 80s the place was absolutely crammed with great machines for 1 or 2 tokens. When it started costing 4 -8 tokens to play anything, and home gaming got better, there was no reason to go outside of friend's birthdays
...that wouldn't explain why the company was dying in the mid 2010's, since home-gaming was a powerhouse in the mid 1990's.
@@DxBlack reread the post - it cost more to game, and home gaming got better.
I'm not American I thought this was the obvious reason. in the past 15 years not many kids are going to be that interested in basic arcade games when they have hyper competitive endless mobile games and console games.
I feel like CEC could’ve easily capitalized on the absolute booming popularity of FNAF in the mid to late 2010s if they just kept their animatronics around, therefore getting revenue from people who want to see what inspired the series, sure it isn’t what killed the brand but it certainly didn’t help their case
No it was the puppets 😂
Chuck E. Cheese is what fueled my love of clinking, shiny coinage. Hearing the company replacing them with flimsy, dull cards was heartbreaking.
Not only that but as well as the paper tickets. My location got rid of the munchers and just recently this customer screwed me over because some kid brought in 1000+ tickets and made me count them all by hand. But worst of all they were the impatient type
Recently went and you can imagine my disappointment lmao when I received a card instead of being able to get coins 💀… I was so confused. I will miss getting those small cups and filling them up with coins or searching the floor for tokens 😫
I just can’t believe it
@@thecov3n the coins are still used but just for certain games. the cups however are gone for good
@@thecov3n After every arcade starting using them it was inevitable.
I remember as a kid losing interest in chuckecheese when they took away the tickets. Collecting the tickets and buying stuff with the physical ticket itself was so much fun as a kid. Digital ticketing took that magic away.
I remember that same feeling at the roller rink, having to fill out paper work to get a stupid card really took the magic away. Having those tickets spit out the machine and carrying them around showing your friends the long chain of tickets was the best part (whoa you got that many tickets from that game! I need to try it too!), not to mention grouping the tickets together to get the big prize. That one change effected the reward and dopamine hits you would get from the tickets.
@@dingowingo7977yeah and the machine that used to eat the tickets so you could get stuff! i remember loving that munching sound as a kid
The reason I take roids is because of Chuck E. Cheese getting rid of ticketing, I wouldn’t be the way I am now if Chuck E. Cheese didn’t do this
Paper tickets were replaced in 2020. You're saying you were a kid in 2020?
Shenanigans.
@@QAMan23 a person could age from 12-16. Could’ve easily been a kid
As an adult there is no way I would have ever been able to deal with being in a place like Chuck E Cheeses without alcohol.
Many CECs sold beer I think
@@louiearmstrongMost of them sell craft brews now
Mine sells beer to this day. Take my kids to same one I used to go to as a kid
teachers or people who work at day care centers don't need to drink alcohol 🤷♂
@@azn1011literally nobody said that so idk what your point is lol
One of the biggest mistakes I think was getting rid of the animatronics, people nowadays make jokes about them but during their golden years in the 80s and 90s when they were well kept and the company put effort into the shows and birthday parties, it was a huge draw for families because it was so unique and iconic, no other kids place had something appear so extravagant.
Also, for the birthday shows, you could tell the employees cared and loved what they were doing. In all the VHS and home video recordings you see, all the workers had a smile on their face, were genuine, and had fun singing the songs and dancing which then rubbed off on the families, friends, and atmosphere of the location and it showed. In the 80s, 90s, and even in the early 2000s before its decline there were dozens of birthdays held there daily and every location was bustling.
i disagree with you: i always found the chuck e cheese animatronics to be creepy & ever since they announced they were getting rid of the animatronics in all of there locations, i was pretty glad by that
There are still a few locations open in San Bruno, Brentwood, and further away in East Bay Area.
We always had mine and my sisters birthdays there. Even have some home movies from the early 2000s with the animatronics somewhere. Simpler times.
As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight.
Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes.
The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades.
The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.
@@dancooper6002exactly, glad someone said it
It's amazing how many companies seem to not realize why they are successful
After changing owners so many times, it’s easy to lose the original concept and focus of what made a business great to begin with. The heart of the business gets lost in the transfer.
@@mariecarie1 Well put
It happens when an outsider buys and manages the business.
See also Google & RUclips.
It's what happens when the people who make a business what it is leave and some rando takes over.
I really hope we're nearing the end of the "minimalistic", flat corporate design of the 2010s. It's time for fun to come back again.
Same. Minimalism is the stupidest, ugliest, and most boring "design" I've ever seen.
@@lovelydolltime8006i know! give me my fruitger aero back, corporations!
@donk8105yeah fr I used to shit in the play place and run it in but it just made it more wacky but then Elmo pulled up on my cousin and shot him with lazar guns and he’s dead
the chuckecheese that i used to go to still got the old design and even the old yellow sweater chucke logo
@donk8105That's the first step to gaining immortality.
I was so excited to bring my nephew last year. He finally was old enough to understand arcade games and I hyped it up sooo much. We walk in the doors, there’s no fun climbing structures anymore, probably 1/5 of the games, and it’s not a fun colorful place anymore. The 5 year old came up to me the other day and said “I just wanna tell you bowlero is cooler than Chuck E. Cheese”. I was like I know kid I know
Dave’s even cooler
It’s Actually sad
I had the exact same experience with my daughter. I was so excited to take her and the locations here are all sad now. The climbing structure & ball pits were so much fun and now they’re gone. The games are pretty lame and many of them were broken when we went. It’s dirty. It feels kind of gross. My daughter had an ok time but has never asked to go back. She prefers other places.
I actually like the new rat design. The 90s Charles Entertainment Cheese was so ambiguous; I couldn’t tell what he was supposed to be.
should have taken them to a Round1
it doesn't feel nearly as minimalistic or dreary as current CEC
It went from a fun old school Disney experience to Orwellian Cafeteria with flat screens.
@donk8105RAT CASINO ahhhahahahahahah
I KNOW
Everyone is terrified of a nightmarish, dystopian hellscape, in the distant future, not realizing that they're already living in it.
Yup. I think about that all the time. Except we don't actually like VR in this dystopia
The facts that the tubes no longer exist is depressing. Growing up as a kid rushing through the tunnels and ball pits was a high I will never reach again
the taking of the tubes is a crime that shall never be forgotten nor forgiven
Smacking my hands against the clear plastic until my mom/grandma take notice 😔
My mom complaining I’m too old for the tubes
As a guy who used to work at a chuck e cheese I can confirm that the main reason was the tubes are too difficult to maintain. Cleaning those things of kid vomit and various other semi-fluids is a nightmare that no one wanted to deal with.
There was always vomit in those tubes
It looks silly now, but if you were a kid in the 80s or 90s, Chuck E Cheese was super fun. The animatronics were really cool, having an arcade in a pizza shop was amazing, and the pizza(to a kid) was good.
Thank you for this! While in college I worked for Showbiz Pizza, so I can confirm two things: First, there's nothing like having to make pizza in a (short sleeve) white dress shirt and bow tie to motivate you to actually STAY in college. Second, your description of an emphasis on quality was a real thing. We made all our own pizza dough from scratch every single day, then let the buns rest 24h to proof properly. We prepped all our own veggie toppings too from cases as well - I still vividly remember going through and cutting up cases after case after case of green peppers, and I still don't like them to this day. Everything was made to-order, from these and other high quality ingredients, and it was actually pretty darn good pizza. This is also where I learned that it takes about 7 1/2 minutes to make, bake, and hand over a pizza for delivery assuming you have a conveyor / blower style oven. Those things were great and very fast!
Nothing like a Lincoln Impinger pizza oven. Still the industry standard.
@@TechGorilla1987 We used to make cheesy/garlic breadsticks for us in the kitchen with the leftover pizza dough. If we had gotten those on the menu we could have made a ton of $s!
@@johnwilliams3075 That's the times when pizza companies, as you said, made fresh dough and let it cold proof for 24 hours. There is STILL nothing like dough treated that way. I used to frequent a pizza hut with my ex-wife. We never had to order or wait in line, we just sat, and Lynn would bring us our food in good time. I always got a pepperoni pan pushed back in to the oven the length of the peel for that extra crispy texture. They would also open a can of anchovies and run them through the Lincoln on an empty pan to crisp them up. Then they put them on the pizza for me. It was sublime. I spent a couple of years servicing commercial cooking equipment so I developed a fondness in case it isn't obvious.
As an a 80's kid I remember the great pizza of ShowBiz more than I remember the rest of the place. :^)
Thank you for your insight! As a kid in the late '80s and early '90s, your point of view was really interesting to me. Among my elementary school, Showbiz/Chuck E. Cheese was sort of known for having the best arcades and tube slides while having some pretty sucky pizza, but we didn't care. The animatronics were pretty cool.
As someone who's into architectural design, especially vintage or historic styles, it annoys me how companies decide to make something all bland and boring because "modernnnnn", which is a problem thats prominent with not only Chuck E. Cheeses, but especially Mc.Donalds and many other prominent food chains. Like, the wood style of the 70s is oddly comforting and I'd even go as far as to say it's beautiful, like some elaborate cabin or lodge, and even the 80s, 90s and 2000s design were charming and had their own distinct character that the modern facilities now lack. Obviously some designs from those eras can become dated, but at least give the "modern" redesign some bright colors other than white, brown and muted green-
Couldn’t agree more
No, a major problem is that wood is more costly to use and maintain... only very recently did wood get less costly...
It wouldn’t be so bad if absolutely everyone wasn’t doing the exact same thing. I mean, I like muted color palettes and clean lines… but I don’t know who the fast food chains are trying to fool. A gray building and new wallpaper is not going to substantially elevate the dining experience.
@@TheTrueAdept Fair point, I just wish they did something that would make their brand stand out more, rather than generic family restaurant no.1,009,890. I just don't see how a gray building with occasional posters dotted around is gonna make a kid feel like a kid rather than an office attorney.
@@juliadagnall5816 Exactly! Most restaurant buildings and locations just blend together in this modern, boring office aesthetic with no distinct personality or eye catching elements. Like, Mc.Donalds in the 1950s and 1960s, their drive through restaurants were bright and vibrant, with large golden arches that served as a beacon and made it stand out from the neighborhood! And now, they pretty much just look like any other fast food place, no unique or fun character relating to the companies mascots or once elaborate branding, and the only reason you knew it was a Mc.Donalds was the signage and the very small amount of yellow.
It may be cheaper and easier to do, but why would I wanna go to Chuck E. Cheese when I can go any other similar restaurant that has arguably better pizza and customer service?
Given the maintenance costs I’m not surprised that they decided to do away with the animatronics, but getting rid of the free attractions and the tokens was stupid. Kids love small shiny things, not boring plastic cards. And when people feel they are getting something for free they will, ironically, probably spend more money because the ROI is higher than if they walked in knowing they would have to pay for every attraction
Exactly, these greedy companies try to rip off everyone for every little thing. But when you feel like you're getting more value and it's fair you're more likely to go there and also keep spending and having fun because it's worth it.
It's just way easier to maintain and cheaper with the cards I'm sure
@@Brandon-qd2lb cheaper but not unique.
Nobody watched them anyway the animitronics were boring to children
Exactly. I took my two-year-old now three to Chuck E. Cheese’s and his favorite game. What is the games that you swipe your card and you got a token. But unfortunately, every arcade it seems is going to the plastic play cards. I think there’s only one arcade here in the metro Vancouver area in Canada. That is still tickets and tokens and that’s a place called jungle jacks in Maple Ridge. It’s sad.
As a person who LOVED Chuck E Cheese as a child, this is a heartbreaking story. But since becoming a parent since their last bankruptcy, I appreciate my local CEC because my daughter is absolutely OBSESSED! Luckily we didn’t get the complete modernized concept. We have the play pass now but the building itself is still old school, which brings a small feeling of nostalgia while making new memories with the next generation
I can't belive Chuck e cheeze's Essentially Copied FNAF
@@DoubleVanimationFNAF came after Chuck E. Cheese, so it’s actually the other way around.
As a ... person who leaves RUclips comments I don't believe you were ever a child to begin with
It's always sad that every "rebranding" to "fit with the times" always boils down to "adults not thinking how kids will enjoy things". And even as someone who never went to Chuck E. Cheese as a kid (poor family, yaaaaay), this still made me sad.
I let out an audible groan as soon as Jake started showing the shots of the "2.0" designs. It looks like a really dull children's hospital, not an amusement center.
You weren't missing much imo. As a kid, I'd rather go to an arcade for an hour and then get pizza that costs a lot less but tasted better...
The adults are the new children
@@Emppu_T.So? I had a poor childhood and never got to go to one. I'd be down to have a few beers, some pizza, and play arcade games with friends.
@@PsRohrbaugh what i mean is i see less restaurants for families. This is not an attack on single people
Nolan bushnell is a f’n pioneer and genius. He literally established the USA gaming industry. F’n legend.
He wasn't the only person behind Atari and they didn't even create the first home game console lol.
All hair Ralph Baer.
it’s ok to just say fuckin
@@cozyeden Fuckin' a cozy, fuckin a.
You can't forget William Higinbotham with "Tennis for Two" and Steve Russel/Martin Graetz/Wayne Wiitanen witn "Spacewar!" The true pioneers
These new stores somehow look more liminal and depressing than if they'd left them alone.
truly soulless
Always loved the old design a lot because it was a lot more inviting. Now it looks generic and lifeless
Yup. They look very institutional. Like a school, prison or asylum.
Went to DeWitt, Iowa to take my cat to the vet. They still have a classic styled Pissa Hut with the red roof, and everything is themed original. It was surreal to see, and was a breath of fresh air. O wasn't around back then, but I'm more inclined to spend money at colorful, tasteful restaurants like the old Happy Joe's in my town and that classic Pizza Hut. I hate the rebranding to depressing, flat colors like grey McDonalds.
@@GetDougDimmadomed I agree wholly. I really miss the dine-in Pizza Huts myself. Relics of a past long since to the wayside sadly. The dim lighting inside was so signature to dine-in Pizza joints and something I absolutely loved about them. Made it way more comfortable and enjoyable of a experience.
Chuck E. Cheese holds a lot of nostalgia for me and i guess it has come to what Jake said “the place where the kids that could be kids have finally grownup”.
I used to love going there with my siblings. We were there with the ball pits, sky tubes, and animatronics.
That line hit hard fr tho. I had my birthday at one location every year and then one day it was just…gone. Moved somewhere else. Spider Stomp was my favorite game and now it’s long gone
And I could tell in the years before the location moved that the animatronics were getting old because they weren’t moving as well as they used to. And the curtains that closed between shows, eventually they just stayed open.
Something that I've always found interesting is that from the '90s right up until they were discontinued, Chuck E. Cheese's animatronic characters had their performances programmed via a single 1.4 MB floppy disk that was swapped out on a semi-monthly basis. And I've heard that a small community of people have been tracking down these floppies and are trying to reverse engineer the code to work with Arduino-based robots, so Charles Entertainment Cheese and pals may have an unexpected revival in the future.
I find that just fascinating that you can run those animatronics off a floppy disk!
I bet a lot of those old characters ended up in people's man caves to be sure.
Anyway its ironic I bet if they opened a new theme restaurant in our town with animatronic animals the city would descend on it like locusts.
They crave anything new and curious. And if the food was good the lines would be from here to Tuesday
This sounds like the start of an animatronic horror film lol
@@Hectorlph That‘s literally the motherfuckin‘ plot of Five Nights at Freddy‘s: Help Wanted
@@HectorlphRise of the Robot Rodents
@@c.rutherfordThe moon landing only used like 4mb of memory
Which, back then took up a whole moving van
I've always thought it was crazy that they abandoned the animatronics. It was such a cool and interesting concept, and obviously one that worked for some time. Especially these days with the popularity of Five Nights at Freddy's it seems like they'd latch onto that market as much as possible.
Yeah they went the complete opposite route for some reason
I think its even more crazy because they literally have (or had, depending on whether or not they've completely retired them) a rule where the animatronics would need to be DESTROYED when they're no longer needed, and alot of the animatronics that did survive only did so by chance. I feel it would've been better to actually go out of their way to put them up for auction since there are people who will pay dividends for them, or preserve them in some capacity since, like in a little museum dedicated to the company's past!
Though there is a place like that already, and it's Smitty's Super Service Station, which is an epic 80's goldmine that's dedicated not only to Chuck E. Cheese's history, but also Showbiz's!
Likely because the suits didnt want their brand associated with a horror series revolving around child murder
As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight.
Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes.
The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades.
The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.
@dancooper6002 Why do you copy and paste the same comment 20 times over and over again? Sure you can blame "bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies" as the cause but the fact of the matter is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) failed to adapt and evolve to the changing trends in society. Any company that fails to adapt, will die. Just some some companies still struggle to have a solid mobile friendly online presence in 2023, more and more of those companies get left behind soon to meet their final days. Any truly successful business cant just stop innovating and adapting to changing trends once they think they hit the top, or just like we see with Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) they too can quickly fall flat on their face.
Literally the only reason I knew this chain existed as a kid was because it was a surprisingly common sponsor for PBS during the early 2000s.
Hurts even more when you keep seeing those ads even though there was never a Chuck E Cheese location in your city.
It’s true
Same here bud I miss those ads. I went to one once and I went to my local one at a shopping mall for a job a year and a half ago. I didn’t get the job. It’s sad this company fell from grace, I do prefer Dave and Busters tho.
Yep, and saturday morning cartoon blocks.
and i'm pretty sure they don't sponsor PBS Kids anymore yet several stores still have a poster with the PBS Kids logo on it, it's really interesting.
As an 80's kid: it was like having your own "weird Enchanted Tiki Room" - you are correct.
I remember going to Chuck E. Cheese as a kid. If you told me back then that the company would end on its knees going through bankruptcy within less than a decade, I would’ve called you crazy. Yet…here we are.
You understood what bankruptcy and financial insolvency was a a kid?
If only had you known the history of just about every experience chain restaurant, you wouldn't be surprised at all . Save rainforest cafe!😅
@@Rokaizeyou underestimate Austin’s power.
How are you surprised? It wasn’t doing that well in 2013 either 😭
@@patrick383ironworkeryes sir.
Man, Chuck E. Cheese back in the early 90s was epic! From the invisible hand stamps to the big cup of tokens and dragging a bunch of tickets, that place was pure nostalgia good times.
I agree.
The pissed filled play area
I miss those days ..the ball pit was the shit lol
@@fred5149filled with shit too
Seriously! I felt like I was entering the coolest club with those invisible hand stamps that they would scan under the black light.
This is going to sound odd, but as a 10 year old in 1980, there was something great about the dark, slightly seedy, slightly sinister feel of the original concept. It gave a feeling of mystery, especially with the creepy animatronics. It was glorious. The 2.0 remake had none of this.
I agree. I mean back then we were all outside in the bright sun all day. Going to a cozy dark theater was a nice change. And it's less stressful, you kind of blend into the shadows and don't stand out. Your parents aren't watching you every second or have you on a leash like these days. You just ran around this giant theater with your friends and brothers.
89s was boss! As a 90s kid I envy you!!! 202os post suck!!
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia just recently put out an episode mocking a Chuck E. Cheese type amusement center and how it's become too safe and clean and not as fun.
As someone who was born a bit too late for the original CEC/Showbiz, I still noticed a marked difference in how much visual concepts of the late-70's-early-80's revolved around that kind of dark, seedy look. It was the same kind of look in films like E.T., in restaurants(Round Table Pizza kept it going for decades), and in commercial art like the backboxes of pinball machines or magazine advertisements. Contrast with the stuff from 1985 onwards, which is more "Miami Vice", or maybe "Peewee Herman".
I'm pretty sure the explanation has to do with demographics: the late 70's are when Baby Boomers were really getting into their careers and starting to form families, and since they were the biggest cohort the dominant aesthetics were following them around, so once they started having the kids the look changed from mysterious and erotic towards brighter-and-cleaner.
YAAAAASSSSS!!!
The 80’s dank!
Such a specific atmosphere for our generation!
Like entering this cacophonous dungeon of wild, flashy fun with seemingly endless potential…the fun was only limited by your ability to earn them tickets!!!!
The memories. Games, dim lighting, pizza, slides, ball pit, mouse hole tunnels under the stage, the smell of feet and cheese, etc.. Pizza time theater was the best version.
My biggest regret is not paying enough attention to the stage show as a kid. When I was young I just wanted to go play the games.
@donk8105oop-😭
Wow. I can’t imagine my childhood WITHOUT Chuck E. Cheese. My little sister and I would beg our parents to go like every single weekend 😂
I can ... because there was no Chuck E Cheese where I grew up.
CEC was my childhood. My grandma took me there when I was 4, and ever since, we'd go every Friday night. I loved the place so much! I'd play the games, eat the pizza, and watch the animatronics. It was a nice routine we established! Me being Autistic made me super invested in the animatronics and even considered them to be alive and my best friends. They comforted me, basically. Growing up, I never had a lot of friends since I always struggled to make any. So, I befriended inanimate objects like cars, boats, my toys, and the CEC animatronics. Jasper was and still is my favorite character. He inspired me to learn how to play the guitar! When I got my first phone, I recorded the characters so I could rewatch their songs on the go. I started this in 2015 but had to stop in 2022 because the last location with a stage in my state removed their animatronics. That was a horrible shot to the heart, especially since I was still dealing with the loss of childhood location that I went to every Friday night. It closed in 2020 cause they couldn't afford to pay the landlord. It was like losing my family.. I've known that location almost my whole life.. My faith in CEC honesty started to fade even before all of that, largely due to the fandom being so toxic (they bullied me and wouldn't shut up about the animatronic parts they somehow got) and the content that CEC creates getting horrible as time goes on. They stopped covering songs, changed the demographic to kids and everyone anymore, and they stripped the characters of their personalities and much much more. They made a lot of bad decisions with the entertainment, the characters themselves, and how they run stuff. I'm very ashamed of what CEC has become, and I honestly am very sad that I will never be able to look at them the same ever again.
Its horrible to hear the fanbase made you feel that way.
I feel for you, people can be really rude when they like something too.
They get defensive and become easily offended.
Keep your chin up
@@nicks4802it takes one person to enjoy something, it takes more than one to ruin it.
@@averagecat4220 not always, but certainly most of the time.
A few bad apples spoil the bunch as they say.
Those people put a bad mark on the fanbase is all they’ve done.
Hope they feel real big about it.
Northridge, CA is keeping their ‘tronics.
@@pestoanchovi Yes, but it's out of my way. I can't leave New England.
As a 90s kid, I remember the heyday of this franchise well! Your bankrupt and abandoned stories are so well done!
One of the most unique experiences of my childhood. Was so happy running around getting lost with friends doing whatever you wanted to do whenever and losing track of time. 98’ to 2005 was my last visit. The one here is always an empty parking lot. This is part of what made that era the golden era to me along with the greatest shows, games, movies, and early internet. I miss those times
Chuck E. Cheese's in 90s-early 2000 was the best. Today, it's not the same. It'll never be the same.
80s beat it.
This 😤
Chuck E: I've got this perfect idea to bring people back!
No more animatronics, no more tokens, no more tickets, no more old artwork, no more stage shows, no more colors, no more retro
I got to spend a few young birthdays at Showbiz in the late 80s and early 90s. That dark and dingey look was actually quite comforting, and my friends and I couldn't have been happier! That new bland corporate look is depressing as hell. I wish kids today could have the experience we had back then.
Yes showbiz was a lot of fun back then..I'm glad some people remember it.❤
I remember when my local ShowBiz was turned in to a Chuck E. Cheese. It was so sterile, bland and aimed at a younger audience compared to ShowBiz. It is my opinion that this was the start of the downfall.
I remember my sisters friends getting a limo to go to show biz for a birthday lol the memories
@donk8105 Ha! Man, we did it all back then. Not having a smartphone strapped to our faces worked wonders for taking risks, living life and actually enjoying it! Got the battle-scars to prove it.
It feels weird seeing Chuck E Cheese the way it is now. I grew up in the 2000's so i didnt get to see the animatronics in their great condition, but i loved that as a kid. It showed that other kids also loved this place i liked, i was always excoted to find a random token, wondering when id go back to spend them.
Now its unusually bright, it doesnt feel like people go there to have fun, its just a brightly lit building with some games and maybe a play 'park'. It hurts but maybe one day they'll go back to their roots.
Idk but like as I was born in the 2000s nobody cared about the robots
@@scubajoe3321 i liked them cause they looked dumb lol
@@nightfuryobsessed5488I loved them because they were derpy-looking. Then, I realized they looked creepy. Then I got s little older, saw a video on how animatronics were built, and was fascinated by how they worked.
I'm an MBA student and even though I tell myself I hate my schoolwork, I always find myself watching these case studies in my downtime as I play video games lol
As a kid I really liked the dimly lit aesthetic at showbiz, felt like a nightclub for kids
Yeah that helped make it feel special
Same at chuck e cheese. It felt like an actual arcade and fun house. Now its super bright you cant even barely see some of the game screens
The Chuck E. Cheese where I live went from being a nice family oriented place, to being a haven for troublemakers. I started noticing this around the mid and late 2000s. Decent and well behaved families stopped taking their kids there to avoid problems and confrontations. As a kid who grew up in the 80s, it’s sad to see what happened to it.
This became true for a lot of locations. There was one incident in St. Charles, MO (look it up) where the mom of a kid celebrating a birthday got angry at the kid's father, and apparently said to the kid at one point: " you better say goodbye to your dad, because it's the last time you'll see him." Anyway, her current boyfriend showed up in the parking lot and shot the dad and grandfather.
This is what happens when we throw morals out the window. Everyone goes feral. Big shocker I know
N's
@@submariner103182What does this have to do with Chuck E Cheese? This is stupid anecdotal evidence.
Everyone is scared to say what they are thinking lol including me
I grew up with Chuck E. Cheese in the early 2000’s, and it’s sad to see how it’s changing. I’m gonna miss the old atmosphere, and especially the animatronics. Chuck will always have a special place in my heart.
Been to Chuck E. Cheese occasionally, had a good time there.
Extremely sad I’ll miss it when it goes
You really were checkin' for the animatronics? lol What was your favorite one? What was it about it that you loved so much?
@@ButterflyFeels well as a kid I didn’t focus on them too much, as a matter of fact I was scared of them, but as I grew up they started to be the main draw whenever we went. My favorite is Jasper and Chuck, and honestly I loved their dynamic chemistry. All of them had good moments in their scripts, and just seeing how they seemingly seemed alive made me develop a love for animatronics.
@@n00traC yeah I was scared of them a bit as a kid too.😅🦋 I def can see what you mean.
Chuck E. Cheese is a classic! It’s sad to see it fall so far from what it once was.
Sad 😓😩😥
Times will always move forward🤗
18:28 Peter Piper went downhill when the company acquired the brand. They added more seating, less games, bad quality pizza, and cheap prizes. The same can be the same with CEC, removed animatronics for an as$ dance floor. It’s genuinely sad the new generation won’t grow up with both brands in their prime.
I genuinely have no idea how Chuck E. Cheese could go out of business. I know it’s a generally dated concept, but every one I have ever been in over the last five years in multiple Texas locations is packed.
C*vid really killed a lot of businesses, especially those that already had questionable sanitation practices before those years. I'm also in Texas and every chuck-e-cheese I've ever been was dirty with greasy kid fingerprints on everything in there. The food was really mediocre as well...I think as a kid, chuck-e's is pretty cool, but for the adults it just couldn't appeal anymore.
The virus killed a lot of stinky dirty kid play places, Chuck was one of them sadly
When I went to my local CEC over spring break this year it was packed, and it's never like that all that often.
This is utterly depressing. Great video as always Jake!
As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight.
Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes.
The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades.
The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.
@dancooper6002 Why do you copy and paste the same comment 20 times over and over again? Sure you can blame "bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies" as the cause but the fact of the matter is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) failed to adapt and evolve to the changing trends in society. Any company that fails to adapt, will die. Just some some companies still struggle to have a solid mobile friendly online presence in 2023, more and more of those companies get left behind soon to meet their final days. Any truly successful business cant just stop innovating and adapting to changing trends once they think they hit the top, or just like we see with Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) they too can quickly fall flat on their face.
@@dancooper6002
Really, you’re just gonna spam that comment in every thread?
@@ajclements4627 Are you the comment police?
@@ispamalot Are you?
My earliest memory is of being lost in a Showbiz Pizza. I was 4 and my grandparents had taken me there and in the dark, I couldn't find them. But I wasn't afraid because I was with BillyBob. A person in a BillyBob mascot suit was holding my hand and walking me around the place to look for my grandparents. And while I can't remember much else from then, I remember the absolute sense of safety and security, knowing that everything would be okay because I was with BillyBob and BillyBob wouldn't let anything bad happen. And that's the kind of stuff people need to think about when they have a business that tailors to kids, I think. That a kid can look at their mascot(s) and know that this is a safe person and it's a person they WANT to be with. Which means they'll then WANT to go to that restaurant/place/whatever and that's how the business gets that persons money and loyalty. Removing the animatronics, imho, was a huge mistake. Having the stage shows was a way for the kids to get to know the characters. Their personality, their likes and dislikes, and thus giving the kids an opportunity to have a favorite and so on. Kids are highly personable and if they get a favorite something, they'll nag and whine and beg and ask their parents for every and anything of that character. It's just another missed opportunity by the people in charge. Makes me wonder if these powers-that-be people ever consulted with someone or someones who have heavy experience in childcare and all.
Aw, that Billy Bob story was really sweet!
The animatronics grossed me out as a kid for some reason. I turned around to face away from them while I ate.
Aww! What a sweet story!
As a kid going to Chuck E Cheese honestly it was a place to play arcade games . Wasn’t too expensive so I can see why parents would choose to let kids run off some energy. Late 90s early 00s were the best .
No better way to spend my Friday than watching another great documentary from Bright Sun Films…and about a seminal business that we all know: Chuck E. Cheese!
the thing i really hate the most with modern brands is the lack of colors. ive noticed a trend within all brands and companies, not just cec, that take their brand associated colors and mute them or replace them with boring beiges and creams. like this is especially egregious for childrens entertainment companies, idk who decided that the late 2010's- early 2020's was going to be defined by fuckin. taupe and steel gray. but i just wanna have a lil conversation with them
Yeah, that's puzzling to me, too. It makes sense that the residential "meta" right now is Coventry gray with white trim, but I don't know why they would do that with logos and brands.
"ultra modern minimalism" seems to be the ideal of modern society. Where everything is a beige, empty box. Boring, nonthreatening to anyone. Devoid of any reason for anyone to think your business isnt an available storefront.
You’d almost think the heads of these companies were some kind of lizard species and their eyes demand the changes to the logos and iconography of the brand so as to not harm their delicate lenses. Harsh curves and dull colors and simplistic shapes.
Bland sterile and emotionless, what they call "Futuristic". I f**king hate it! I applaud any company that dares to give this trend the middle finger and take the opposite route with bright colorful and lavish designs.
It’s cuz the Sesame Street gang still all the fucking colors it all makes sense bro holy shit it makes sense
Oddly enough, despite news about this bankruptcy they still managed to build a whole new Chuck E. Cheese's near me over these past few months. It even got all the way to a grand opening without issues
Same here, it opened last year, I took my then 2 1/2 year old and was disappointed that the slides and climbing maze and ball pit etc... were not there, just the games. I was like, what happened, we have not been back. I can just bring her to Dave and Busters and have better food.
At every friend’s birthday party, my anxiety levels directly correlated to how close the party table was to any horrifying animatronics. Those dead eyes…those clunky, terrifying movements…
I was that kid.
I was freaked right out, but wasn’t a cryer.
It made my spider senses tingle like a MF’er though, until i left the table and went back to playing arcade games.
I NEVER got too close to those robots…. Those potentially killer robots…
@@nicks4802was that a FNAF reference
I chatted with a dude that worked on maintaining those animatronics. One story he told me was one day he was walking by the currently playing bears. Stopped and listened due to hearing something was off. If you ever worked maintenance or operating machines, your ear can easily be tuned to anything that is off and broken. He reach under the female bear and felt around a bit, came back out with oil all over his hand. There was this family sitting nearby, he said out loud, "It either got to be a leak or its that time of the month again." The entire family lost it LOLing.
Maybe it got er excited 💀
Actually that female bear is a mouse named Mitzi Mozzarella.
If this is a CEC or Showbiz location you're referring to, I kinda doubt that story. Theres no oil used in those animatronics, only lubricant for the pnuematic parts. Oil would severely damage it
@@FireCat_P And that was on his hand. It was a bad seal leaking air plus lube.
@@techwolflupindo the hands on cyberamics don’t have any pneumatics or lubricant, it’s a solid piece
the worst thing about the new chucky's is how bright it is. The coolest thing in the 80's was how dark it was, it was a fun place to run around like a whole different little world.
Yeah. I remember ours had a room full of Strobe lights. I hadn't ever seen that before and it was wild.
@donk8105smoking had been discontinued by the time I was old enough to go (late 90s) but our CEC was still nice and dark and full of wild lights. It was great.
I do find infinite irony in ditching the animatronics because “kids like screens” or whatever right before the biggest friggin’ thing kids play on the screens is about animatronics at a pizza place.
Imagine the money they’d be raking in if they kept them and then did some undercover marketing thing where people on fake accounts take TikTok videos of the animatronics with stupid text like “I swear it looked at me yall”
Companies: If we make everything a screen, people will want to come here!
People: if everything is a screen, I can just look at it on my phone from home. I don't have to go there.
Me and my brothers had many birthdays at Chuck E Cheeses, memories that I hold dear. It’s crappy to see what it has become but nothing can last forever.
Exactly.
Never been to a Chuck E Cheese (I'm from the UK), but have studied Nolan Bushnells success stories. CEC was such an innovative idea and would have loved to have visited back in its heyday.
I had many great birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese’s, it was sad to see my local CEC close and I feel equal parts sad and nostalgic when I see a furniture store standing in its place.
Honestly, I don’t think they’ll last much longer once the last stage is nothing but mangled up medal. That’s the thing that made them unique. Without them, they’re just another pizza place. But CEC doesn’t give any sh*ts. Great video by the way
What a shame they never thought to capitalize of the absolute craze Five Night's at Freddy's caused. Imagine opening up a Halloween 21+ special where they transform the place into a haunted attraction.
I'm honestly surprised Chuck E Cheese hasn't gone the route of Pizza Hut, Burger King and Taco Bell and done a complete nostalgia-filled rebrand to rake in that sweet, sweet millennial cash.
As cynical as I am about that stuff, I could 100% say it'd work in some degree (probably more older people than children, but hey that could be an excuse for said older people to drag in their child relatives to ogle robot rodents)
They actually are in the works for something like that rn
A lot of there history is gen x and millennials kids. That is when they did there best. They will be around as long as the kids still want to go. Mostly from those generations. Dad and Mom can tell there kids when they went there. So there kids will know about it.
They should have like an adult night every week to capitalize on that :)
@@lunkee6972😂
The vibe was different hearing a coin enter the slot and you hear the game turn on. Was better then.
The 2008 crash is what killed the brand's happy atmosphere. Before then, people had things to be happy about and would show it when they went places, even work.
But after the crash, the threat of foreclosure on millions of people laid an air of depression on everything. Slowly but surely dragging everything down. People stopped truly enjoying life, and it really showed in places like chuck e cheese. The workers, under huge stress as most of them (much like my mom at the time) were worried their homes and cars might be repossessed and the bank may even go bankrupt, losing their life savings.
Being a kid was just different after 2008...
…I’m pretty sure it was actually because people could no longer afford to go there, not that they *did* go there but everyone was too depressed to enjoy anything
the next crash is gonna make 2008 look like childs play
And then we had 2020 which made everything worse
Everything was different after 2008. 😬
Yeah it was different in the 80's and 60's and 40's and 20's and you just don't understand. Crap happens all the time and neither you nor the time was special.
I love how dark n gritty it was in the 90s. Truly a special memory that will always live on
You should have seen the 80s version
You mean the 70s and 80s.
@@nyanpirethecat2257 I was too young for the 70s to experience it. I started going around 1980
I’ve followed you for maybe 8 years and the flash of you with a beard… makes me realize how time changes haha. I remember comments of people saying you laughed too much etc. Keep being awesome.
As a child who grew up there in the early 80s I can tell you what I loved about the place. MY Chuck E. Cheese was basically a dark arcade/play area. The dark lighting made the place seem bigger. The entrance to the arcade had a regular entrance and a kid’s size only entrance through the play area. At various birthday parties my friend’s and I would bolt for the kid sized entrance and go through the dark maze-like play area. The arcade though was the stuff: REAL video games not the crap ripoff stuff off today. The arcade usually had older kids in there so that made the place seem even cooler. Like, if the big kids are there, this place must be awesome. The last time I was in one was about ten years ago and it was awful. Brightly lit, everything was dirty and made of plastic, kids just trying to get tickets, spending ask kinds of their parents money just to get a prize worth fifty cents. Those stupid crane machines and other garbage money vacuums.
If I ran the company I’d get back to making it a place where kids nag their parents to go to. Add some mini golf outside and maybe some laser tag and go carts! Make it a destination!
Yes, this! Bring back the dark Chuck E. Cheese that felt cool inside. My Chuck E Cheese in the 80's and early 90's had a parents room with a big projector screen. It was smokey and dark as hell. There were no windows in that huge location. Being brave enough to enter the giant theater where the terrifying animatronics might spring to life at any moment was a rite of passage for kids.
I wish more real vgs were in arcades instead of mobile game rip offs
Yeah, it was similar to ShowBiz Pizza Place. The lighting was dim and it was practically dark in the showroom. I just don’t know where the marketing people got in there head that increasing the lighting would also increase the sales. The dark lighting was part of the experience. And this is especially true when watching an animatronic show
@@nicholaskania9106 that’s bc showbiz pizza place was a pizza time theatre franchise
The last part yes
Its still so wild to me to think about how my younger brother and I, born mid 80s, were born early enough to enjoy classic Chuck E Cheese....and then be able to take our youngest siblings to visit, born 98 and 2000. When you think about it, the fact that Chuck E Cheese was able to have so many physical locations and evoke such atrong memories today, that has to count for some major brownie points.
I was forced to attend 7 birthday parties at my local Chuck E Cheese this last year and the place was absolutely packed every single time. The joys of parenting a 6-year-old.
But at least in my area, it appears that they are doing well. It is sad to see it devoid of the character it had in my youth, though. It's essentially a big featureless dining room with a dance floor and video screens surrounded by arcade machines. It's very loud, messy and somehow sterile at the same time.
But the kids all love it, so who am I to complain?
I do like that it's unlimited arcade games for 2 hours now but otherwise its a lot worst than when I was a kid
You can tell your age based on what Chuck E. Cheese you prefer.
Personally, I hated the "cool Chuck" era of the 90s. And I loved the dark, seedy, pizza bar of the 80s. Going to that old version felt like an adventure.
I love the ‘80s version as well. The ‘90s version and later was awful.
Yes. Totally agree!! The CECs of the 80s was a fond memory of mine. Just wish my kids would of had that experience. Awesome times!!
I grew up during the Avenger years (2000s), but I prefer the early PTT years! It's less kiddy and more entertaining! I'm jealous of all those Gen Xers that got to experience it! ;D
Chuck E. Cheese went from feeling like a miniature Disney World to Dave & Busters for toddlers.
I miss it when they used to market toward families of all ages like Showbiz Pizza did, nowadays you walk in and you feel like you've walked back into a kindergarten classroom or something. The animatronics will always remain a relic of the chain's glory days
More like for school age children
speaking of newly bankrupted things i love, i'm excited for the christmas tree shops episode to come out at some point, me and my mom loved shopping there and it really broke her heart when it closed
They had the worst pizza. I never had my birthday party there but I remember going there for other kids birthdays. The ball pools and the games were the best part. The animatronics always freaked me out, especially when they would still blink and move while they were not playing music. An abandoned Chuck E Cheese with animatronics would be freaky as heck.
its called 5 Nights at Freddy's
1989 was my 1st birthday at chuck e cheeses i was 3. Celebrated every year until i was 16. Thats 13 birthdays ill never forget. I still have gold tokens from 1994 and 1997.
Fun story. There was a chuck e cheese where I lived in the burbs. I have a friend who was a cop there and he said there were fights breaking out every night that it got to the point where they had to close it down. One of my coworkers went there and said its just a place to dump your kids at and the parents would drink because it was so bad. The pizza was awful, but the kids didnt care.
That's true.
@@Jane-Roe1126 Same happened to the one in my city too.
I super appreciate all the effort and research BSF puts into these videos. Chuck E Cheese was a staple of my childhood and later on when I became a dad. So this topic has special meaning to me. Thank you so much once again Jake. You never disappoint. Have a great weekend! 💚
Thank you!
While this is about Chuck Cheese going belly up, you glossed over the major decision in choosing Chuck and friends over the Rock-A-Fire critters, and that was the rights to the characters. That's a great story within the history of CEC, and was worth a reference in your explanation as to why they stuck with the rat rather than the bear and friends.
My local Chuck E Cheese was so poorly run it kept hiring more people, despite being unable to even put most of them on part-time shifts, so nobody could make money there
I find it funny that the significant revival in the interest of animatronic mascots with the advent of Five Nights at Freddy's and the mascot horror genre did absolutely nothing to save Chuck E Cheese's obsolete business.
I was looking for this comment
im still suprised no ones tried to licence the characters to make a restruant
it could be mostly because they didn't really embrace it, that and (if i'm not mistaken) a good handfull of locations at the time didn't have all of the animatronics if they had any at all
@@fbidumbbee oh totally. I also don't mean a full retheme just change some locations in big tourist areas into "freddy fazbear's"
Changes in technology definitely helped with Chuck e cheese going bankrupt too. We went from animatronics to VR.
Facts
which i'm sure people will get tired with eventually and want something real/tangible again. it's the mighty circle.
@@FatherAxeKeeper I doubt you'll find people wanting extremely creepy animatronics back tbh.
@@alice45-fgd-456drt lol
If Chuck cheese changed their tech to vr they vould have stayed open. The old tech wasn't fun anymore
I think ditching the animatronics, right around the time that Five Nights at Freddie’s starting going viral was a massive error. When I was a kid in the early 90s, I thought they were super lame and paid 0 attention to them, but you better believe I would have been fascinated with them if I was familiar with FNAF.
For real and if they had somehow gotten Scott to allow them to use the characters they could have made horror related pizza experiences with the fnaf characters. It sucks that they didn’t try to do this in the height of fnaf being popular.
Willy's Wonderland did it better.
@@TPLS2seeing as FNAF mirrored the chuck e cheese murders, I don't think that was something they wanted
It wasn't a massive error at all its a game where CHILDRENs CORPSES got stuffed into A ROBOT blud you ain't cookin at all bro thats the last thing you want your company to be tied too lmfao
@@kmb957leave
Chuck E Cheese was a great place to take our kids in the late 1980’s. The kids loved getting tickets and then buying stuff. I have such good memories of the kids just being kids. (Their slogan at the time). The animatronic show was fun, though it was the video games and rides that brought the kids in. The pizza was amazingly good - they put some sort of garlic butter sauce on it after they came out of the oven. So much better than the local Pizza Hut. We stopped going after the kids grew up a few more years and Chuck E Cheese wasn’t “cool”. Still a great time out for not much money and wonderful memories of our young family.
I’m not going to lie it would be pretty cool if they made a Chuck E. Cheese for adults, old-school video games and alcohol whole place designed for not kids but the big kids 🤣
It's called Dave and Busters, Google it
In a few Texas cities there’s a place called Cidercade- it’s a cider brewery and old school arcade combo. You pay $10 to get in and it’s free to play as many games as you want, you only have to pay for drinks. Idk if they’ve expanded beyond Texas but if there’s one near you, I’d definitely recommend.
Free Play has a number of these types of locations, there’s hundreds of old video games and pinball along with a full bar and food
Ah yes, home of fruit ninja tabletop.
Round1, baybeeee!!!
The dark-and-dingy look was a feature, not a bug. If it it's not dark, dingy and windowless, it's not Chuck E. Cheese. I was a kid going to CEC in the 80s and that's how I fondly remember it. All of the shots in this video of brightly-lit stores are unrecognizable and charmless.
🏆
I’d love to see a video on David’s Bridal. Weird company, so many bankruptcies. I worked there for a year while they were going through it and the policy changes pay changes and other changes were bizarre.
We need this
There's one of those here - or was - and I always thought it was a local company. Never knew it was a chain.
I will never forget all the magical moments I gave to kids who are adults today, both in the costume and later in management and later in corporate....
As a side note, it wasn't a matter of "expense". It was how seriously the people who ran those locations took it.
The “Five Nights at Freddy’s” creator walks into a Chuck E Cheese’s one day and sees the slightly creepy animatronics. “I got an idea,” he said.
And we get an awesome game, and a movie due to come out.
Inb4 somebody goes "um acksully 🤓🤓"
edit: called it
What really happened is that the creator’s character design was compared to the animatronic here
Well his games were roasted and well... as they say the rest's history.
@@brucelindahl9814 You get a drawn-out horror series by a questionable creator.
These videos are incredible. This is why I like youtube. Say what you will, but they create opportunities for me to learn so much for so little, and they support their creaters
That’s really cool to hear, thank you!
I've witnessed numerous fights between parents in those ridiculous buildings.
Nothing like when I was a kid in the 80s
As someone who works in the liquidation space with companies that go bankrupt, i really enjoy this series and seeing why these businesses fail. I'd love to see a video about Big Lots
Chuck E Cheez reminds me of one of those less popular casinos in Laughlin. Just depressing, you only went in to use the bathroom, and you feel a little guilty and obligated to buy something.
In 1996 I had my 10th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. My mom forced me to invite my entire class from school. Neither of my close friends outside of school could come. The pizza was okay. When the staff came out to sing happy birthday to me, they had zero enthusiasm and had a choreographed dance that they couldn't remember. Knowing what I know now about what it was like to work there, they were likely exhausted. But as a kid I was a tad disappointed. I took it as them not giving a crap. None of the kids I invited wanted to play with me, which made sense since they all bullied me in one way or another at school. I ended up falling in the ballpit and several kids trampled me. The arcade games were never available cause kids were always on them, and there were a few that weren't working. I don't remember much else besides being miserable the whole time because nothing had been fun. I vowed to never go there again after that.
Did your mom know you were being bullied by the other kids? If so, it was an AWFUL move to make you invite them.
@@DrawciaGleam02 She knew. She was trying to solve the problem by thinking that if I invited them we'd become friends. Yeah, no.
@@AlexIsModded
I hope she realized her error afterwards.....
If they go back to their roots and maybe form some partnership/rebranding or collaboration with Five Nights at Freddy's, I think there can be some widespread appeal. Going to Chuck E Cheese's was always a reward when I was younger and feeding my tickets to the ticket monster and redeeming them for mediocre prizes was a blast! Appreciate the entertaining history lesson and walk down memory lane!
Horrible idea I'll give you that
Better that it distance itself away from Five Nights at Freddy's.
@@merafirewing6591i disagree, we need more child murder
IDK about year round as it might be a bit niche, but I feel like a Halloween spooktacular making the animatronics extra creepy aimed more at teens, young adults, and millennials? That would be pretty dope ngl
I think every kid growing up in the early and mid 00’s had at least 1 birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, myself included. Definitely felt some nostalgia seeing those commercials and videos of the old Chuck E Cheese
This is such a high quality video. Thank you Jake!
I was homeschooled so spent a lot of time at Showbiz/Chuckie Cheese. The animatronics were both fascinating and terrifying to me.
Wait why did you spend a lot of time there because you were homeschooled? Genuinely asking :)
This makes no sense
By being homeschooling, was going to CEC the only way you could socialize with other kids?
I find animatronics awesome, especially the Rock afire Explosion.
@@amogusenjoyer because my mom needed something to do with me during the day
I have to say how funny it is that I’m New Mexico almost all the Chuck E. Cheese locations are still there, but it’s because they never got remodeled there’s still the same old model with the old mascot who was the rat. I just think it’s really interesting to see.
That's quite a history for this company. I never would have known as a little kid that this company actually went bankrupt for the first time ten years before I was born, because it felt like they were on top of the world when I was growing up in the late 90's/early 2000's. It seems like right around the time I was getting a bit too old for Chuck E. Cheese is when they began to have their current struggles. My generation is perhaps the last to have any sort of connection with the more tangible, analog past that defined the second half of the 20th century with its ball pits, animatronics, climbable tube structures, etc. whereas today's kids have grown up in a primarily digital, screen-based world where everything they want is on their iPad. It seems like the company is shooting themselves in the foot by removing those more tangible features in favor of more screens and removing all of the bright rainbow colors in favor of more neutral, minimalist tones. Kids are going to feel like what's the point of going if they already own touch screens themselves and adopting these more drab colors will make kids feel like they're being dragged to the dentist rather than having fun. It could also be the case I saw in another comment that the conditions that made Chuck E. Cheese successful 20-30 years ago have completely changed and there's no longer as much of a middle class that can afford to go to these sorts of places as often as back then. Also undergoing a leveraged buyout at a time when you're already struggling is a recipe for disaster as we've seen time and time again on this channel along with a global pandemic preventing people from congregating at any one place is really quite the cherry on top. Quite frankly I'm a bit astonished that they're still around at all given all of these factors, we'll see how much longer they persist into the future.
90s to early 2000s Chuck E Cheese's was the golden era of the company they were on top of the world while still having positive relationships with the comsumer.
im glad i grew up during that time i had many parties at my local location (which to this day hasnt been changed since the 90s) and i attended many parties at other locations i still have a jar full of those tokens