The slant to this story on NPR is that the new buyers may really value the CEC brand name to open new international locations in "emerging" markets. In that case, I wouldn't hold our collective breaths on this somehow salvaging one of the few U.S.-wide chains that sometimes/maybe has a working pinball machine.

To be honest, if they do want to attract parents, I hope they don't bring back alcohol. That's not going to end well. It would be much better to cordon off part of the place for parents to unwind without kids.

technically i suppose. i prefer beer that i don't have to drink 7 of to feel the slightest buzz.

They sure are. They didn't give me any problems using them.

Did they work at the Maplewood Circus? You should have them join this Facebook group if they are on Facebook and not in the group yet. Does she have any cool pics of the place or anything still from back in the day?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/CircusPizza/

Thats what the machines we own were built for. In fact a lot of us have pins that were in an arcade like C.C. at one time. An 8 year old kid can not beat on a pin like most tournament players do.

Yup - those were the ones that were at Showbiz. Showbiz had a lot of great arcade games, that was the first place I ever saw a Dragons Lair.

CEC sucks.

The Robert street one in West St. Paul, which apparently was very profitable. No pics back in the day. I visited her many moons ago, she gave me some tokens, and I ended up doing horrible on Mortal Kombat 2. No pins there. It was the big redemption era at that time.

Yes, but considering that the machines are set to give them out very very rarely, I wouldn't suggest using more than one per trip or you're going to get some funny looks...

As for the news... it's really good. I worked for Chuck E Cheese for a long time, I've been "friends" with Chuck E Cheese himself... it was my first real job, and on my first day I found employees having, uh, relations in the balls after close, so that was interesting. And that was a relatively tame day. Fascinating job. I tell stories about it from time to time, but not now...

Anyway, CEC had some really stupid management about 15 years ago. They remodeled our store and spent a TON of money doing it, and when they did they had us trash nearly all of the games that appealed to teens or older, and they replaced them with absolutely stupid stuff that even my three year old now doesn't like. One example was a game where you put in a ball, rolled it back and forth down a snake's body where IT COULDN'T FALL OFF, did that a total of three times, and then you got three tickets for the bother.

Their idea was to shoot for the 1-3 year old market, which was stupid because the majority of those kids don't beg to go to Chuck E Cheese. The older kids were the ones that begged, but I regularly heard from them comments like, "Why did you make this place for babies now?" Once that happened, things started falling off.

From the time I started in the mid-90s to the time I left in the early 00s (the remodel was right in the middle), we were selling about half as much product as we were when I started, but we were charging about 50% more for it, so we had almost the same amount of profit... but it was quite clear to me it wouldn't be sustainable.

A few years later, CEC started to add in some more adult type games again and moved everything to a quarter, specifically from what I heard to combat the 'baby' image they got. But once you get an image like that, it's hard to shake.

CEC needs a change in direction to do something that will seriously appeal to older kids again. If they can do that, their model is solid. One of the CECs in our area could turn more than $1mil in sales per quarter, even after things slowed.

yes, my bad Showbiz Pizza

i know exactly that game! it does suck! in our CEC, it sits next to some dumb thing where you put a coin in to talk on a phone to a pre-recorded voice. my 3 year old was completely uninterested in both. he was only interested in the (super lame) slide and crawling through the (kinda cool) tubes that went pretty high up. i played the snake game (out of boredom) for a minute while watching him, and i managed to accidentally break it. the stupid plastic ball fell somewhere off to the side and was too light to roll downhill into the hole it was supposed to go in, so the game just sat there stuck.

anywayyy.

my gripe with chuck e cheese nowadays is all the redemption stuff. my daughter, who is 6 and ought to be getting pretty close to the ideal age for the place, gets bored quickly. it doesn't take long even for a six year old to figure out which "game" gives the most tickets and just feed all their coins into that. what fun.

Huh, I was expecting a comment about these "swill" beers' flavors. Strong beers are mostly only about twice as strong.

I'm glad I can feel a buzz chugging just one of the lightest beers. Saves money!

hopefully interesting note: Nolan Bushnell:
Bushnell worked at Lagoon Amusement Park for many years in high school and college while living in his hometown of Ogden, Utah. He was particularly interested in the midway arcade games, where theme park customers would have to use skill and luck to ultimately achieve the goal and win the prize. He liked the concept of getting people curious about the game and from there getting them to pay the fee in order to play. He would use his love for games and theme parks to help launch both Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters.
In 1969, Bushnell and colleague Ted Dabney formed Syzygy with the intention of producing a Spacewar clone known as Computer Space.
In order to keep the company alive while the machine was being prototyped, the two took on a route servicing broken pinball machines.
when that business ultimately failed he started ATARI. he contracted Bally to make a driving game. while at Atari he saw a demonstration of a game that he eventually turned into PONG.
Using borrowed parts from Atari, having the main PCB printed up by Atari employee Howard Cantin, and receiving further assistance from Atari employee Ron Wayne,[16] two non-employees, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak—both of whom had previously been involved in the development of the Atari arcade game Breakout—created and marketed their own home computer. They offered the design to Bushnell, but Atari had no desire to build computers at the time, instead focusing on the arcade and home console markets.
In 1976 Steve Jobs went to Nolan to get him to put in some money in exchange for a minor equity stake in Apple. Nolan remarked, "Steve asked me if I would put $50,000 in and he would give me a third of the company. I was so smart, I said no. It's kind of fun to think about that, when I'm not crying."[17]...He actually wrote the check and then 10 days later rescended! but dont feel too bad..He sold Atari for 28 million when a million was well A MILLION!!

I know of the CC you're referring to. I loved it because I never had to wait my turn or have some brat kid bother me to play it. I just put on a pair of headphone and tuned out the world!

Can I come over and play? Your line up is my CC dream!

Well, now I know why there's only a couple of select pins that can be used at CEC. Those dang toppers!

You know, back in the early 90s, they had pinball too. I recall seeing a video of one from 1990 that had a Space Shuttle in it, and another one that looked like Grand Lizard or Swords of Fury. Interesting.

Also, the one near me in Natick has an Elvis, but it's been there forever. It would've been cool to head there back in the day and play some QUALITY pins like WH2O or TZ.

Were there any machines back in the day there that YOU played?

This was exactly my experience Monday of this week. It was the only place on my side of town (according to the Pinside map) that had a pinball machine, a Shrek. We took my 4 year old son and our friend's daughter so they were able to play some games and, in fairness, it was cheap. But unwatched kids were cutting in front of our kids - I almost just took matters into my own hands and picked one up and out of the way, risking a parent fight.

It took 30 minutes of watching other kids defile Shrek, climbing on it like a jungle-gym almost before I got a chance to play. At first, kids just crowded around me and the machine (including leaning all over the table). The left flipper was limpy, balls dirty, playfield dim and dirty, super bad glare due to the overhead lights. I can't imagine how it may be during the day being right next to the window. Both me and my son got to play it a bit. I felt bad this machine was his first experience though, given the condition, atmosphere, and lack of a stool (so I had to try and hold him up).

I don't think I'll ever be going back again. Now in fairness, we did pick the total wrong night to go as there was a school fundraiser going on then. But we can go to Peter Piper and get a better experience for all the other games there and the pinball machine you could tell just wasn't getting the care it deserved. I feel sorry for it. In fact I thought about calling to ask if they'd be willing to sell it, but I know it would be a fruitless endeavor.

There's another place on the other side of town that is said to have 4 or 6 machines and we'll be making a trek to Pinballz soon (they have a new Star Trek, awe yeah) so hopefully my son can get a better, memorable, experience. Just a shame there isn't a place closer where we can just go play on a whim. At least not until I get a pin for the house.

That Circus is now the Chuck E Cheese where I played the POTC that is now gone. Small world.

They must be profitable if someone was willing to pay a billion dollars for the company.

When I first started making the cannon led mod for POTC, a guy in management from CEC contacted me about buying in bulk - he was talking about 350 kits - I almost had a stroke since I make these by hand. Luckily he never pulled the trigger.

Scott

I shit you not, I actually got maced at CEC and years later found out that it was by a cop.

They were profitable, they were just far less profitable then what they could have been.

I take my son to the one I used to work at sometimes, and it's always FAR more dead then it was when I was there. I have a friend who works there now, and he's confirmed it to me.

They paid that much because it has a lot of potential to earn money, if they don't do stupid stuff like target the games at 3 year olds, and then dumb them down so far my 3 year old thinks they are stupid.

Were you at a table minding your own business eating pizza, playing a game of Skee Ball or was something else going on?

Remember, the police are there "To protect and serve". It's printed right on the side of their cars that are equipped with Billy clubs, guns, tazers and mace.