Chuck E. Cheese parent company to close 34 locations
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
All those Chuck E. Cheese tokens and tickets you've been hoarding are still good for now, but you might not have a local Chuck E. Cheese where you can use them anymore.
CEC Entertainment, the parent company of the entertainment-and-pizza venue geared toward kids, plans to permanently close about 34 locations that were still open when the coronavirus pandemic began.
The company, which owns the Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza chains, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Wednesday.
Late Thursday, the company filed a list of about 45 leases it plans to reject, including five in California, four in Florida, four in Massachusetts, three in Ohio and three in Oklahoma. The list included 11 locations that had already closed before COVID-19. (See below for the full list.)
CEC also requested a judge's permission to continue to honor game credits, tickets, tokens, gift cards, customer deposits, discount offers and loyalty accounts, as long as the company remains in business. The company has said it hopes to use the Chapter 11 process to shed debt and emerge as a more sustainable operation.
With more than 15,000 employees, the Irving, Texas-based company had 555 company-owned locations and 186 franchisee locations spanning 47 states and 16 foreign countries or U.S. territories as of Dec. 29.
CEC, which is owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management, posted revenue of $913 million and a net loss of $29 million in 2019, according to a court filing. Reserved birthday packages made up about 16% of the company's revenue in 2019.
Founded in 1977, Chuck E. Cheese makes up a majority of the company's business. Each location has about 75 games, rides and attractions, including classics like Skee-Ball, Whac-A-Mole and arcade basketball. The chain also serves a menu of pizza, wings, desserts and drinks, including alcoholic beverages at most of its sites. Visitors are serenaded by the brand's eponymous mouse mascot.
Apollo took the company private in 2014 through a leveraged buyout that left it with substantial debt.
With its venues temporarily closed due to COVID-19, the company lost more than 90% of its revenue despite efforts to ramp up food delivery and takeout. During that period, the company got behind on its rent at hundreds of locations, according to a court filing.
"In ordinary times, the company would be financially sound," CEC Chief Financial Officer James Howell said in the court document.
In a separate court filing, CEC listed the leases it plans to reject. This list includes 11 venues that had already permanently closed before COVID-19. It was not immediately clear which locations had done so.
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Man am I glad the days of Chucky Cheese are in the rear view mirror.
The rat bastards knew they had parents over a barrel. $7 for a really bad glass of wine that was maybe 4oz at best. You needed about six of em just to to take the edge off.....
I went there once and never again. Their pizza sucks. But CC is geared to kids and the games. Slap sauce and pepperoni on cardboard and kids would still eat it.
Slap sauce and pepperoni on cardboard and kids would still eat it.
It doesn't get much worse than that......
I remember when I used to take the girls I baby sat there. They didn't give a crap about the food. They just wanted to play the games.
How often were you there? You might be eligible for workers comp.....!
We had a daughters BDay there once, kids from base and cheerleaders from the elementary school.
They threatened to throw us out because the girls were too noisy and dancing and doing the conga lines
While the parents hid in the safe room drinking beer & cheap wine.
The perfect place for loud raucous kids and the management complained?
smh
never again
What were you thinking SP..... all they wanted was your money.
LOL!
It was a loooooooooooong time ago!
I don't think I can seek compensation now Fly.
I don't think there is a statute of limitations on cruel and unusual punishment Tess...
I love how they imitated CC in the movie The Pacifier. It was called Woody Woodchucks.
"There is no free styling in the ball pool!"
that place was my idea of hell. I went twice decades ago for both my boy's birthday parties. their pizza was shit on a shingle.
Amazing we all seem to have the same memories despite having visited different locations.....
I tried to make up for the pizza by getting a plate for the salad bar. It sucked, too.
God.... I'd forgotten about the salad bar....
Lucky you
Me too. lol
Why couldn't this have happened when my son liked Chuck E. Cheese?
Why couldn't this have happened when my son liked Chuck E. Cheese?
Because maybe God has you mixed up with 40 other really bad people...?
For me it was that purple dinosaur Barny and his insipid little sister Baby Bop that pushed me over the edge.
Happy Friday Sandy!
Barney and Sponge Bob both creep me out.
I got a haircut in Meriden, Ct. when I was on a project there 18 months ago. The haircut was lousy, but the guy that cut my hair was an aficionado on both the old and new Sponge Bob. I got to listen to him talk at lengths to the kid tending the chair next to him on the subject. Might be why my haircut was so bad.
In college, I had a friend who majored in child development, and she was sick to death of Barney. For her birthday, I got her a Barney pinata, and she beat the shit out of him, cackling the whole time.
Happy Friday, to you, too. Have a good weekend.
I'm crying from that one Sandy.....
But that does give me an idea for our next adult birthday party.....
You have to post the video.
Chocolate Martinis and a stick.
...With what should we stuff Barny with dear Liza, dear Liza?
OMG....My daughter absolutely loved Barnie!!! She would watch all day and all night. Then when my son got old enough to understand TV he would moan very loudly and yell "Not Barnie, again, K!"
He would then go hide in his room
My kid had a stuffed Barney toy and a yellow blanket he never went anywhere without them. Except one day he left them at daycare and I had to pick them up and wait for his mom to come to the Cutter to pick them up. I put a bandanna and sunglasses on Barney. Rolled some tape to look like a cigarette and put him on the shelf in my office until she came.
Smart kid.
You going to put it in someone's bed?
LMAO, yup the CEO of Chuck E Cheese.
Damn..... those NA tortures are really brutal. And I thought staked out on an ant hill was bad.....
I think I only went there a few times but I swore I would never have a birthday party for my little animals in that place...they could torture me until I died but they were never going to have a party there.
The food sucked, wouldn't dare try the beer, and the stuff given as prizes? I could go to the dollar store and get that crap a hell of a lot cheaper.
Let's call this a silver lining.
I second the motion. Parents having to be present could easily be in violation of the Geneva convention on many fronts.