Chuck E Cheese's grew into an enormous, world wide chain, but has since suffered two bankruptcies, fierce competition, and a decline in popularity. Let's explore its fascinating and turbulent history.

I have great memories of Showbiz Pizza but when I returned to Chuck E Cheese as an adult I vowed never to return there. Literally the first thing that happened when we entered was the mouse came out carrying some nachos, tripped on a kid, and dumped the nachos all over my wife. We got some free tokens out of that but the place was so crowded, dirty, and generally unpleasant that I never let my kids host a party there. Not to mention what they did to Rock a fire animatronics

I'll never forget the time Chuck E. Cheese's advertised gourmet pizza under a ghost kitchen during quarantine. It was Pavarotti's or something like that. I remember thinking, "oh a new pizza place? Let me check that address." Felt really disingenuous to pretend it was a separate "gourmet" pizza place.

In their defense, I went a while back (a decade+) and was similarly unimpressed. I went two weeks ago with my nephew (his choice) and the place was clean, well-run, and we had a great time. Maybe I got lucky, but it seemed that they'd done a lot of work since I'd last been

Quite amazed that this company has endured for 40 years. I thought for sure the only one Ive ever been to would be closed but nope, google says its still open. Pretty amazing. My kids liked it but that was 30 years ago. All I recall was the bad food - and it was the only place Ive ever played Skeeball and Whack-a-Mole. And tickets. Hundreds of tickets for cheap plastic prizes.

Last time I went to a Chuck E Cheese's location I was actually really surprised at how good the pizza was. I was expecting it to be garbage, but it was pretty high quality - better than most chain pizza places in the area. It was even better than Straw Hat pizza, which claims to be "gourmet".

That being said, I went there because I wanted to play arcade games, and most of the stuff there was meant for very young kids. I think there were even a bunch of kiddie rides (like the kinds that used to be outside of grocery stores that you'd put a quarter in and it would slowly rock around). To make matters worse, it was just a few miles away from a Round 1, which is better in every way except perhaps food. Go a little bit further and you could find places like Dave and Busters or Bowlero. I never went back because the arcade was too sad, but it wouldn't have mattered because they actually ended up shuttering the location anyways.

I'm not in a place where I can watch this video right now, but I honestly wonder how much of their failing comes from the times changing and how much was just really bad management.