5 Good Reasons To Never Go To Chuck E. Cheese
6 December 2019
The dude who founded Chuck E. Cheese also founded Atari, so we need to give him some credit. If I spent as much time on the piano as I spent playing Space Invaders, Pac Man, and Centipede when I was a kid I could have been Yanni.
That written, let’s get into my top 5 reasons for avoiding Chuck E. Cheese.
First, maybe your kid is taking too long to pick a toy or she’s holding up the line for the photo booth. Next thing you know, some other kid’s mom is punching you in the face. Pop! More fights break out at Chuck E. Cheese than at the MGM Grand in Vegas. And having wine and beer on the menu isn’t helping. I saw one guy get cut off by a staff member at one Chuck E. Cheese as he apparently tried to order a third or fourth glass of wine. The place has the combustible, reckless energy of a Jerry Springer episode right after Tori comes clean about sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend.
Second, I have three words for you: hand, foot, mouth. All the games in Chuck E. Cheese look like they’ve come into contact with an infected person's saliva or fluid from blisters or, dare I say it, feces. I don’t need my kid getting hit with respiratory droplets as he’s heading for the skee-ball machine or getting flu-like symptoms from playing in the SARS ball pit. Next thing I know, it’s seven days of fever, sore throat, and painful, red, blister-like lesions on the tongue. And I paid $100 for that, a plastic slinky, and a hand clapper.
Third, there’s been an ongoing rumor that they recycle their pizza. Any place that has that kind of rumor about it I run the other way from. It makes me think about three other words I don’t like together: health code violations. I start thinking maybe these folks don’t take food storage and personal hygiene seriously, either, and that cross contamination is just a part of doing business. If my kids and I are coming to your kid’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese (and we’re not), we’re wearing the highest level of protection Hazmat suits with the full-face, self-contained breathing apparatus, chemical resistant gloves, and two-way radios.
Fourth, the number of shootings inside and directly outside these places is extraordinary. A guy in Tacoma accidentally shot himself in a Chuck E. Cheese. A Memphis rapper is in critical condition after getting shot outside a Chuck E. Cheese in Tennessee. A guy from Alabama died after a gun went off in a diaper bag outside Chuck E. Cheese. Windows were shot out of a Chuck E. Cheese in Pico Rivera. There was a shooting that started after a fight inside a San Bernardino Chuck E. Cheese, and two kids were shot in a Fort Worth Chuck E. Cheese parking lot. This is just scratching the surface. And let’s not forget about the Chuck E. Cheese killer who is on death row in Colorado or the 150 police calls that were made in 2017 to three different Chuck E. Cheese’s in Jacksonville alone. I’d rather take my kids on an Ariana Afghan Airlines flight for a picnic in Lagos. Seems safer.
And finally, let’s talk about drugs. You’ve got the guys smoking heroin in the OC Chuck E. Cheese bathroom, the mom overdosing on heroin in an Ohio Chuck E. Cheese, and a 4-year-old coming back with a baggie from a ride on a carousel in Illinois.
Oh, and I failed to mention that Chuck E. Cheese has been sued for promoting gambling and paid fines for violating child labor laws.
But their slogan is “where a kid can be a kid.” So cute. Who wants some pizza?
