As a card-carrying member of the complex elder
millennial micro-generation, I feel qualified enough to speak on behalf of my fellow brethren when I say that we all have a memory of Chuck E Cheese.
Most of those memories fond: Gorging
ourselves on pizza. Unfettered, free-reign independence through the SkyTube tunnels. Relentlessly basking in a rain shower of prize tickets.
Some, though, were not-so-fond: The stomachache
that would inevitably come after said pizza. Getting unsurprisingly lost in the ball pits. The admittedly multiple nightmares from the animatronic band that somehow would still move even when it was
turned off.
Despite those sullied memories, now a parent myself, I’m oddly excited when my 3.5-year-old daughter is old enough to host her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. It’s a rite
of passage, a ritual every middle-class American youth should experience, like losing a tooth or taking the school bus to kindergarten.
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Whenever that does happen, though, it won’t be the
Chuck E. Cheese of yore. The storied chain has come a long way in its almost 50-year lifespan. There was even a time when it might not have made it, having declared bankruptcy during the pandemic in
June 2020. But this old mouse has been on a comeback tour of sorts over the last five years. The Ball pits: Gone. The Pizza: Better. The Mascots: Refreshed.
How’d they do it? This week
we sat down with President and CEO of Chuck E. Cheese Entertainment, David McKillips, to talk about one of our favorite brand turnaround stories of the decade. Listen to the full podcast here and don’t miss David as the opening keynote at our Digital Out of Home Insider Summit on Oct 8-11.