What happened to Chuck E Cheeze?

Posted by jerry as finance

When I was a kid, the highlight of my year was to get to go to Chuck E Cheeze.  They had many cool games and the singing, dancing animitronics.  I hadn’t been there is a long, long time until last year.  I went for a birthday party that my son was invited to.  It was pretty well run down.  And the store is a very nice part of town.  At the time I dismissed the experience as catching them on a bad day. 

So, yesterday I get to go again for another 5 year old’s birthday.  Nearly a year later.  The first thing I notice as I’m walking around is that ALL of the games are the very same as my last visit.  I also notice that the same games that were not working last time are STILL not working this time.  I would estimate about 5% of their games are broken.

So, it comes time for the party to gather.  As we sit down, the lights dim and the curtain opens and the animitronic Chuck E Cheeze starts to sing and do his bit.  Except there’s no sound.  One of the kids sitting at the table behind me asks her mom: “mommy, why can’t Chuck E Cheeze talk?”.

As I look around, there are some TV screens built into the walls.  Some big, some small, all of them BROKEN.  Two of them have only the red color gun working, the other colors making a nasty zig-zag line on the screen. 

Now it’s time for Chuck E Cheeze to make his floor debut.  As he’s meeting and high-fiving the kids, another employee is getting a large boom box out, asking a fellow co worker if the right CD is in.  She takes the stereo over to the wall near where Chuck E Cheeze is greeting his fans and plugs it in.  And hits play.  The group of kids conga’s around the store behind Chucky to music coming from the portable stereo.

After they all return, the employee lights the candles on two cakes - there are two simultaneous parties happening, after all.  She runs over and changes the song to the Chuck E Cheeze happy birthday song.  Which is interactive.  And requires the employees to dance.  The employees are trying to get the crowd to sing their part of the song: “I say happy… You say birthday… Happy…”  silence.  Over and over and over.  I would swear that I was in some kind of bad Chevy Chase movie. 

I felt pretty bad for the poor employees who kept bumping into each other as they are attempting to pull off the corporate dance moves, and being unsuccessful at rousing the crowd.

On my way home, I started to wonder: why is it like that?  Then, I remembered seeing a sign on the door as I walked in: “All of our games are now just 1 token!”.  Ah, that’s it.  When I went 30 years ago, the games were a quarter as well.  The games I can play at home on my Wii at least compare favorably to the best games at the store, blowing most of them away.  Going to Chuck E Cheeze is not the experience for my kids that it was for me.  When I was a kid, Chuck E Cheeze had games that seemed so far advanced I felt like I was in the future.  It was a maical place to me.  For my kids, Chuck E Cheeze is a challenge to get as many tickets at possible to cash in for some crappy toy. 

The margins of that store have to be razor thin.