🠈  Chuck E Cheese  🠊

Chuck E Cheese

Chuck E Cheese is a chain of pizza restaurants that include arcade games, amusement rides, and animatronics.

The restaurant was founded in 1977 by Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari with the goal of incorporating animatronics in a fun environment. The first restaurant was in San Jose.

Chuck E Cheese had development arrangements in 1979 with Robert Brock of Kansas City. Brock created a competing chain called Showbiz Pizza which created a short lived rivalry.

The animated pizza business fell on hard times in the 1980s as the video game business evolved faster than animatronics. The two companies merged in the mid 1980s. The site ShowBizPizza.com has pictures from the Show Biz Days.

Today, Chuck E Cheese is headquartered in Irving, Texas and claims to have 500 plus restaurants. The company traded on the NYSE with the symbol CEC. It was acquired by Apollo Global Management in 2014.

Company Man created a video about the history of the chain after its 2020 bankruptcy.

Corporate Timeline

Below is a listing of select events for Chuck-E-Cheese. The original name for the company was "Coyote Pizza." There was a mistake on the order for the mascot costume and they received a rat's costume instead. Bushnell considered the name "Rick Rat's Pizza" but the marketing department came up with "Chuck E Cheese Pizza Time Theater" instead.

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References:

  1. Wikipedia - Chuck E Cheese (Drawn 6/30/2020)
  2. Business Insider - Apollo Buys Chuck-E-Cheese (Drawn 6/30/2020)
  3. Funding Universe - CEC Entertainment (Drawn 7/5/2020)
  4. Show Biz Pizza Timeline (Drawn 7/14/2020)
  5. GCS Web - Apollo Buyout (Drawn 7/14/2020)

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