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Chuck E. Cheese history
Chuck E. Cheese company history timeline
The first Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre opened on May 17, 1977 in San Jose, California.
Warner finally sold the restaurant and concept ownership to Bushnell in June of 1978 for $500,000.
One person interested in such a franchise was Robert Brock, whose Dallas-based company, Brock Hotel Corp., had 1978 profits of $4.6 million.
In November 1979 they found what they were looking for.
When Pizza Time went public in 1981 it increased Bushnell's worth to somewhere in the range of $70 million – much of it in Pizza Time stock.
In 1982 the contested lawsuit between Pizza Time and ShowBiz is settled out of court, with ShowBiz agreeing to pay Pizza Time a portion of its profits for the next 14 years – an expense estimated to be in the range of $50 million.
By July of 1983, Pizza Time was beginning to hemorrhage money, reporting their first loss ever at $3 million.
The successful year-end to 1983 that Bushnell had anticipated never came.
As problems continued to mount, Bushnell resigned as chairman and CEO on February 1, 1984.
In 1985 Richard M. Frank joined the company as president and CEO of ShowBiz, replacing Brock who remained CEO and chairman of Brock Hotel Corp.
An outside company Creative Presentations Inc. was hired to do some of the add-on retrofits such as the Liberty stage, which was installed system-wide across ShowBiz stores in 1986.
In 1986, he was named chairman and chief executive officer of the restaurant division.
Also in 1987, the company acquired most of the assets of Montery House Inc. a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants.
In 1987, the company opened its first new store in over 3 years.
In 1988, Brock Hotel Corp. changed its name to Integra-A Hotel and Restaurant Company, and spun off ShowBiz Pizza Time through a stock swap with shareholders.
However, by the end of 1989, there was no improvement in sales and the company decided to convert 26 of the units to a trendier concept, Monterey's Tex-Mex Cafes, and close the rest.
By September of 1990 all ties with Creative Engineering had been broken and nine ShowBiz stores had removed the Rock-afire Explosion characters, retrofitting them to resemble the Chuck E. Cheese characters.
ShowBiz reported same-store sales increases with a net income of $15.5 million on revenues of $253.1 million in 1992.
By 1992, all restaurants assumed the name of Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza.
However, when the company announced lower-than-expected second quarter earnings in June 1993, its stock dropped 35 percent to $18.75 a share.
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Chuck E. Cheese competitors
Company Name  | Founded Date | Revenue | Employee Size | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peter Piper Pizza | 1973 | $87.0M | 1,400 | 64 |
| Incredible Pizza | 2002 | $64.1M | 1,200 | 5 |
| Dave & Buster's | 1982 | $2.0B | 2,220 | 2,912 |
| John's Incredible Pizza | 1997 | $53.0M | 1,000 | 4 |
| Gatti's Pizza | - | $103.0M | 500 | 14 |
| Main Event | 1998 | $110.0M | 4,605 | 16 |
| Monkey Joe's | 2005 | $14.0M | 154 | - |
| Magic Mountain Fun Centers | - | $28.0M | 50 | - |
| Pump It Up Party | 2000 | $2.0M | 50 | 7 |
| Shakey's Pizza | 1954 | $2.1M | 750 | 54 |
Chuck E. Cheese history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Chuck E. Cheese, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Chuck E. Cheese. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Chuck E. Cheese. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Chuck E. Cheese. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Chuck E. Cheese and its employees or that of Zippia.
Chuck E. Cheese may also be known as or be related to CEC ENTERTAINMENT INC, CEC Entertainment Inc, CEC Entertainment, Inc., Cec Entertainment, Chuck E. Cheese, Chuck E. Cheese's and Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre (1977–1990) Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza (1990–1994) Chuck E. Cheese's (1994–present).