Atari’s co-founder, Nolan Bushnell, founded Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre in 1977. Brock Hotel Corporation had acquired Chuck E. Cheese when it filed for bankruptcy in 1984.
This merger was the beginning of the new firm ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. It was first rebranded as Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza in 1990 and then Chuck E. Cheese in 2019.
Nolan Bushnell had opened the first restaurant and entertainment center in San Jose, California. It was a unique place where people could spend the entire day with the family while involved in various recreational activities.
Today, this franchise has spread across 47 states in the USA and 16 countries across the globe, and it operates more than 612 establishments and corporate stores around the world. It became a popular family entertainment center to celebrate birthdays, parties, and other experiences.
Visitors can enjoy amusement rides, and stage shows, play arcade games, and taste mouth-watering fast foods.
How Does Chuck E. Cheese Retain Customers?
Chuck E. Cheese is not just another place where customers can have pizza and other fast foods. Visitors can order chicken wings, cold-cut sandwiches, desserts, salad, and many other food items.
This franchise has offered arcade gaming since the beginning. Clients can pick coin-operated gaming machines to play some vintage games.
Top-skilled players can set new records and win rewards. This franchise rewards tickets, which users can redeem to get candy, merchandise, and toys. Because of these amusements, Chuck E. Cheese has drawn both kids and adults.
Chuck E. Cheese’s animatronic shows have also drawn many people. It features various stage events to entertain visitors and retain their loyalty. Besides, the restaurant offers delicious pizzas to make parties memorable.
This franchise is competing with many renowned restaurant franchises in the U.S. and other countries. Continue reading to learn about this company’s major competitors.
Chuck E. Cheese Competitors
1. Round Table Pizza
William R. Larson had opened the first pizza parlor of this franchise in Menlo Park, California in 1959. Today, this pizza parlor chain operates traditional restaurants and clubhouse-style pizza parlors.
Operating 400 restaurants in the USA and 5 other countries, Round Table Pizza is a reputed franchise as of today. It got the “Round Table” name because of the round redwood tables William and his father had constructed.
The Round Table Pizza clubhouse is quite similar to Chuck E. Cheese: it offers delicious pizzas along with arcade games, pub play, and large screen TVs to stream live sports events. The clubhouse-style restaurants serve craft beer and many other cuisines.
Round Table Pizza has served its loyal consumers for the last 63 years, many people choose this franchise to enjoy weekends and special events. This franchise has been competing with Chuck E. Cheese since it was established.
It emerged from bankruptcy in 2011 and managed to expand to 5 international locations in 2014. It may reach several new locations to compete against the world’s leading pizza franchises.
2. Dave & Buster’s
Competing against the USA’s leading restaurant chains and entertainment centers, Dave & Buster’s became a popular destination to spend quality time with friends and family and a prominent destination to enjoy food & drinks while watching sports and playing arcade games, and it operates across 144 locations across the USA and 2 locations in Canada.
This restaurant franchise serves many delicious meals and beverages. Restaurants also offer in-store games. Many customers choose to have virtual reality thrills and many prefer to enjoy billiards and bowling.
For these reasons, Dave & Buster’s restaurants are fully equipped to keep clients engaged for hours. If there is a major sports event, customers choose to watch it at the local Dave & Buster’s franchise, because it provides meals and drinks while the fans are enjoying their favorite sports events.
It became a renowned destination to watch NFL, NBA, Baseball, Soccer, and other sports events.
Just like Chuck E. Cheese, Dave & Buster’s also offers space to organize parties and other events. It has a reward system that draws people back and allures new customers to try their luck.
Even though Chuck E. Cheese is spread across the globe, Dave & Buster’s became one of the best alternatives to this pizza parlor chain.
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3. Boston Pizza
Boston Pizza is a Canadian restaurant chain operating across 400 locations in Canada, Mexico, and the USA. Greek immigrants Gus Agioritis, Trifon Agioritis, Ninos Agioritis, and Perry Agioritis established the first restaurant of this franchise in 1964.
It spread across 17 locations in Western Canada within the next 6 years. Today, Boston Pizza serves thousands of gourmet clients and offers a comfy space to stay entertained for hours.
It became a popular place to enjoy live sports games and delicious meals along with exquisite cocktails and alcoholic beverages. This restaurant is always packed with sports fans whenever a major sports event is streaming live.
Boston Pizza also delivers food to customers’ doorsteps if they can’t visit the restaurant. It has take-out and delivery services across the USA.
This restaurant chain attracts everyone willing to spend quality time. There are pianos and other engaging attractions that keep visitors engaged. Customers call Boston’s the best place to distress and have some fun after a tiring day!
4. Main Event Entertainment
Main Event Entertainment is a chain of family entertainment centers in the USA. The first Main Event Entertainment center was established in 1998 in Plano, TX. It quickly spread across 17 states within just 24 years and it is still expanding.
This company employs 5,000 people to offer the best customer service and it has made over $651 million now.
This company has established entertainment centers across 44 locations in 17 U.S. states. It is an exciting place to enjoy holidays and parties with delicious foods and beverages.
Main Event franchises also offer entertaining games, such as arcade games, billiards, virtual reality games, bowling, rock climbing, laser tag, mini-golf, karaoke, and gravity ropes course. Thousands of families consider Main Event the best place to organize kids’ birthday parties!
Since Chuck E. Cheese offers the same type of facilities, it’s a major Main Event rival in the USA.
5. America’s Incredible Pizza Company
America’s Incredible Pizza Company (AIPC) is a popular restaurant chain headquartered in Springfield, Missouri. This franchise operates its restaurants as entertainment centers and pizza buffets. Rick and Cheryl Barsness opened the first AIPC restaurant in Springfield in 2002.
Today, this franchise has gained over $64 million and it currently employs more than 1,200 people! It is serving at more than 25 locations in the USA and 3 locations in Mexico.
What makes AIPC a major Chuck E. Cheese rival is its restaurant format. It feels like a vintage restaurant because all franchise restaurants have the 50s theme.
Consumers can order pizza, salad, pasta, and dessert bar to soothe their hunger cravings. Each restaurant covers a 65,000 to 70,000 square feet area. Visitors can enjoy games such as billiards, miniature golf, bowling, and arcade games along with go-kart rides!
America’s Incredible Pizza Company restaurants are perfect destinations to enjoy alcohol-free parties. It does not allow consumers to smoke and drink, so this franchise attracts many families.
6. Ledo Pizza
Robert Beall and Thomas Marcos first established Ledo Pizza in 1955. It was established in Adelphi, Maryland, near the University of Maryland, College Park. It quickly became a popular destination to enjoy delicious fast food.
Today, it operates as the 35th largest pizza chain in the USA. Apart from a great variety of pizzas, this restaurant offers many health-promoting meals.
This restaurant serves great pizzas with a thin crust in a rectangular shape, it started baking rectangular pizzas because rectangular baking pans were easily available during the 50s. Smoked provolone cheese and thick pepperoni make these pizzas extremely tasteful.
Ledo Pizza bakers decided to not cut the corners and serve uniquely shaped pizzas. Thus, the rectangular shape became a unique identity of Ledo Pizza.
58 employees work for this franchise to quickly bake and serve mouth-watering pizzas. Unfortunately, it does not offer space for entertainment and sports events, so this pizza franchise is not one of Chuck E. Cheese’s major competitors!
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7. Papa John’s
Papa John Schnatter founded Papa John’s in 1984. This restaurant’s journey had begun in a converted closet and today it owns numerous stores across the globe. Being one of the most popular pizza restaurants in the world, Papa John’s serves across 5,500 locations in 49 countries!
It is a global pizza parlor chain and its headquarters are located in Louisville, Kentucky USA.
This pizza restaurant currently offers delicious pizzas along with sausages, chicken cuisines, bacon, and several other dishes. It is the world’s third-largest pizza delivery company and the fourth-largest pizza restaurant chain in the USA.
This pizza restaurant chain has made over $1.80 billion by 2020. It has around 16,700 employees, who prepare over 350 million pizzas along with other cuisines annually.
Both Chuck E. Cheese and Papa John’s compete to entertain pizza lovers, but Chuck E. Cheese also offers recreational activities. Consumers always choose Chuck E. Cheese whenever they wish to enjoy delicious meals and some games!
8. Domino’s Pizza, Inc.
This restaurant chain was established in 1960 in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the U.S. Its headquarters are now located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It serves pizza lovers across 5,701 cities across the globe.
Spread across 83 countries and operating more than 15,000 stores, Domino’s is the 2nd largest pizza restaurant chain in the world!
Domino’s international expansion had begun in 1983. The first international location this company served was Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its 1000th store was opened in Vancouver and then this franchise spread across the UK, Japan, India, and many other countries.
This company sells over 400 million pizzas per year. The recent statistics reveal that Domino’s is selling over 1.5 million pizzas per day! Such a huge response from customers proves that people prefer Domino’s over other top pizza parlors.
However, it does not offer too much to entertain clients, so Chuck E. Cheese is still the top pick for delicious meals with entertaining games.
9. Mellow Mushroom
Three Georgia Tech students founded the first Mellow Mushroom pizza parlor in 1974 in Atlanta, Georgia. Today, it has become a popular franchise and it serves across 200 locations in the USA.
This pizza restaurant chain sells store-baked pizzas along with other delicious cuisines and beverages.
Even though this franchise’s restaurants specialize in baking pizzas, they also provide hoagies, calzones, appetizers, salads, and a variety of beers.
This restaurant chain does not own stores in different locations. Those locally owned stores are operated by partners, who sell Mellow Mushroom’s pizza recipes.
This pizza parlor occasionally organizes trivia competitions, bingo, music events, and karaoke events to entertain customers. Thus, it’s one of Chuck E. Cheese’s major rivals in the USA.
10. Papa Murphy’s
Papa Aldo’s Pizza and Murphy’s Pizza merged in 1995 and became Papa Murphy’s Pizza. This merge helped the company quickly expand its operations in the USA and Canada. Today, this company is operating as the USA’s 5th largest pizza chain!
This pizza company serves ready-to-bake pizzas across 1,500+ locations. Customers visit Papa Murphy’s pizza outlets time and time again because it serves delicious pizzas prepared with fresh ingredients. The customer just needs to bake it and then hot and crispy pizza is ready to serve.
Customers can place the order by visiting stores, on calls, or online. Papa Murphy’s stores also offer a drive-thru window to save customers’ time and serve delicious pizzas.
The take-and-bake model helped this company draw numerous clients seeking hot and fresh home-baked pizzas.
Lower pizza costs and cost-effective restaurant operations help Papa Murphy’s save a lot on the business’s operations costs.
It has made over $800 million in revenue and it’s competing with the leading pizza chains in North America. Therefore, it is one of Chuck E. Cheese’s major rivals in this part of the world!
