• linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      And if you took the food away kids would still want to go there. If you took the entertainment away nobody’s going there for the pizza.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        I don’t know who you’re trying to impress. Most of us have been deeply soaked in the Bushnell-verse… I’m looking forward to the upcoming origin story movies.

    • DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      That said, my kid got invited to a Chuck E Cheese’s birthday party recently, and the pizza was a hell of a lot better than I remember it being 15 years ago

      Not going to win any awards, but definitely edible

  • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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    4 months ago

    The initial pitch was an arcade with a restaurant to feed guests. Since video games were at the core of that strategy, I would expect it should be classified as an entertainment center first.

    • idealotus@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      They’re apparently decently popular on online delivery apps, though they sneakily go under “Pasqually’s Pizza and Wings”

        • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          “Pasqually” is also a slightly unusual (but very Americanized) misspelling of a very popular Italian name, evoking a first or second generation Italian-American immigrant from the early part of the 20th century.

          And the average person probably doesn’t know the animatronic characters’ names.

  • Alk@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I think it started out the former and evolved into the latter. My source is like 3 neurons in my brain that were last accessed 15 years ago so pretty sure it’s accurate.

  • Yaztromo@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Chuck E Cheese was founded by Nolan Bushnell — the same Nolan Bushnell who was one of the co-founders of video game company Atari (at one time, the biggest player in the home console industry). He started it in part as a way to promote Atari games and cabinets.

    So it was both — and the “entertainment centre” part was always part of its “core mission” from its inception.

  • richieadler
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    4 months ago

    Try to find the segment John Oliver did about it. It’s hilarious.

  • 🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    4 months ago

    IIRC, the original act for the animatronics had a bit about not calling it a restaurant because it was primarily an entertainment venue, it just also served food. There’s a few documentaries about the rise and fall of the place that are pretty good and would be more informative than me trying to remember every detail lol

  • Rin@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    What do you mean? It’s a restaurant, they serve pizza and have a salad bar. I’ve been there a bunch of times as a kid. It’s a restaurant man, what are you talking about?

  • RattlerSix@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    There’s extra steps that have to be taken in order to serve food so they’re probably officially classified as a restaurant

  • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    As a kid it was an entertainment center, as an adult the pizza isn’t bad, but you get funky looks when you go solo XD especially if you want to play the games :-( don’t even go for the ball pit (this is for adults and kids)

      • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        My friend had a hard time getting in, like 20 years ago. But he just wanted to play DDR.

      • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Could’ve been that the hosts recognized me from having gone with the family a month prior? And I asked them if it was weird that I was just there for the pizza and they agreed that it was remarkably good compared to the other chain options around, but no, no discrimination for food purchases.