Chuck E. Cheese May File for Bankruptcy
Could an iconic childhood eatery be closing?😞
Rumor has it that Chuck E. Cheese is discussing filing bankruptcy due to the huge financial losses the business has taken during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to reports, Chuck E. Cheese is nearly $1 billion in debt, but still fighting to keep this childhood party place alive. If they are unable to do so, there is a good chance that all locations – over 600 in total – would need to close.
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Dang once again I have giftcards. Tho Logan’s did open back up in my area (Ohio)
the one in my city was doing carry-out for pizzas (ick)–but at least you’d use the gift cards?
This place was always so dirty and probably full of viruses/bacteria. This was back when my kids were little (about 13-14 years ago). Not sure if anything changed but now with COVID, this is not a shocker.
Agree.
Well they did have had 3 months to “deep” clean. lol
Already closed the one here.
It seems like we will be very limited with all of the closures. Without competition things will cost. There’s a lot of children focused places, but they never stay open for long.
Boo!! We’ve been saving tickets for years to get the big prizes.
I used to do that and then the ticket would either get lost,or we would forget so we started using then right there. Ours does 1 penny per ticket so we could use them for food and snacks.
I love how the website now says they are booking parties but they are booking them outside normal business hours. So if you would want to do a birthday party (I don’t know would even want to though) you have to have the party from 9am to 11am. I really wonder if anyone would ever book a pizza party at 9am in the morning. I think in a matter of time they will all be closed down. They were struggling far before the covid and now I do not see how it.could survive. Their pizza is crazy expensive but we would eat it since we were there and going to play games. The one next to me was never ckean and most of the workers were barely 16 and could care less about work performance so the tables were never even wiped off.
CEC used to be regularly open at 9 and the first parties Mon-Sat started early. Pizza may not sound appetizing to everyone at 10 in the morning but the early parties had the advantage of less crowds and a freshly cleaned store.
I went to a party at 9. None of the kids seemed to mind eating pizza at 10/10:30ish. At that time, I think one of my kids regularly had lunch at school at 10:45 🤷♀️
Agree with others, ours is in a bad part of town and is very icky! Always hear about parents having sick kids after being there. May be coincidence but it could be the yuckyness!
Everything i touched seemed either sticky or greasy in there, I was always kinda grossed out taking my kids there for birthday parties
Love our Chuck E. Cheese! Staff is amazing, everything clean and well taken care of. We would miss Chuck E. Cheese sooooo much if it closed.
Ours was clean, too. I hadn’t been in a couple of decades until we were invited to a party about 2 years ago. I was kind of dreading it (ragging on CEC seems to be a “thing” with my moms group) but I was pleasantly surprised and the pizza was pretty good . The staff was so nice. We’ve been back a couple of times since. My kids love it.
Our Chuck E Cheese in Middletown, NJ is absolutely AMAZING! The store is always clean, the team members helpful, and the pizza delicious!!! I hope they never close!
Aw, this makes me feel sad and old! My first job was at a CEC. I was part of the crew that opened a new location and a core group of us ended up staying about 5 years (late high school/college). In general it’s hard to keep a place full of kids/families running around willy-nilly clean but there were standards for cleaning – tables and games as well as “sky tubes” and even ball pits when we had them. Our store was in a solidly middle class area but we (employees) still occasionally found dirty diapers left under tables by lazy parents or, inexplicably, whole slices of pizza in a ball pit or spilled soda in the tubes. (Eat your food/drink at the table and change your kids in the bathroom… As a 37yo mom I don’t see that as difficult or too much to ask.)
I’ve been concerned about allarcades since this virus paranoia started. It’s a business model based on touching a bunch of screens/buttons/balls/mallets that someone else just touched. Games last about 30 seconds so having an employee wipe off a game between each person isn’t practical and each game has unique parts to be wiped off.
CEC survived H1N1, Sars, Mersa plus the regular cold and flu seasons, I’m sorry to see COVID-19 bring it down. I have pictures of me, my daughter and my niece and nephew all playing there over the years.
Let’s hope that was spilled soda in the sky tubes 🤣. I have good memories of cec and how terrified my kids were when Chuck E. Cheese came out to dance.
My cec is at the mall so it was smaller but I’d say overall clean. Ours did have to go pizza during the shut down. So for old times sake and because I have giftcards, I hope they pull through for a few more visits.
LOL chances are good it wasn’t always soda. Thankfully I was never in a position that cleaning the tubes was my duty. 🙂 The stores varied drastically in size – from the tiny mall stores to converted grocery stores so the amount of games and length of tubes varied. by location.
I think most locations have taken out the ball pits and the tubes so now they just have the same hygiene concerns as Dave & Busters and other arcades
Is anyone really surprised?
They changed their pizza awhile back and we love it now! I’m so sad though cuz I have about $70 of gift cards and I saw this 🙁 I checked my local Chuck E. Cheese and they are totally closed right now. Not even open for takeout otherwise I would’ve ordered a bunch of their food to go.
This is so sad. We love going and spending time as a family together there. 2020 just seems to be more bad news 🙁