Chuck E. Cheese
1730 W Fullerton [GoogleMaps]
(773) 871-2484
CPC invaded Chuck E. Cheese on 4/17/10.
Another year, another State of The Chicago Pizza Club meeting. This time, in order to revel in our pizza proficiency, we decided to go to Showbiz Pizza (where a kid can be a kid). Shocked and saddened to find that our favorite childhood pizzeria/arcade/bacteria pool was bought out by Chuck E. Cheese, we instead chose this venue for our annual meeting. However, a little research shows that Showbiz Pizza was actually the one that bought Chuck E. Cheese and then decided to brand all their restaurants under the Chuck E. Cheese name. Bizarre.
Of course, there has to be a reason to gather all your close friends at such a place, right? Well, we decided it would be my (2nd) 30th birthday! This got me a crown, with extra tokens stuffed in it, a cool balloon with tokens weighing it down to the table (thanks for stealing those, everyone), 3 pizzas, 20 tokens for everyone that came, and unlimited pop all for $14 apiece. I also got to participate in the birthday show with all the little kids. At first, Chuck E. was a little standoffish with me. I tried to high-five him and he left me hanging. However, after seeing my enthusiasm for the birthday celebrations he warmed up to me and made it a memorable (fake) birthday. He's not so bad (for a rat) after all! Of the on-stage characters, I think Pasqually the singing chef got my vote as favorite because he's the only human on the stage.
I was kind of disappointed in the arcade game selection. There were some serious ticket-winners, such as Shoot The Moon, but they weren't very exciting. There were a few pop-a-shots and football games that were a lot of fun as well as the classic skee ball, but no good video game racers, fighters, or shooters. Perhaps the worst omission is that there was no whack-a-mole game anywhere to be found. I noticed a Bozo Grand Prize Game in the corner, but only after I had burned all my crown tokens attempting to shoot the aforementioned moon for mad tickets. After pooling all of our tokens (and purchasing additional ones thanks to MCH's coupon), we had 2500 tickets. This went towards the purchase of 3 foam rocket launchers and a Nerf football. Awesome.
The pizza...well...you know, it disappointingly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I only had one slice, pepperoni pizza. The best part was that the sauce was mildly spicy; I wasn't expecting any strong flavors for a pizza that is marketed and sold to over-sugared children. The crust was sturdy, though flavorless. We also got a sausage pizza and a cheese pizza.
As for Chicago Pizza Club, although I failed to give a speech I would like to note that we remain the best Chicago pizza blog ever and that our blog continues to have increasing readership. Fiscally, we had a rough year in that our revenue was exactly zero dollars. However, like all Americans living in this difficult time, we tightened our belts and are happy to report we only spent zero dollars this year. Therefore, we are able to continue the club into the 2011 fiscal year.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Annual State of The Pizza Club / Chuck E. Cheese [Meeting #95]
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7 comments:
The pizza is terrible but still edible.
2.0
I should have played more skee ball.
I love that the rocket launcher is one of the worst toys of the year.
I ate a large meal before Chuck E Cheese because I was convinced the pizza would taste like ass. It wasn't good, but it wasn't inedible. A shade below Domino's. I give it a 3.0.
Skee ball aside… this wasn't a very fun experience. All the noise and little people running around gave me a minor anxiety attack, and suddenly sterility seems like a good life choice. That said, the quality of the pizza did nothing at all to improve my opinion. Edible sure, I guess… 2.5
I expected the pizza to be disgusting, but it was mostly just bland. Stick with just cheese pizza, though. The sausage looked too gross to try.
Overall, I kind of wish I hadn't spent 1.5 hours of my last kid-free days before this baby is born at Chuck E Cheese, but I'm glad the big fat rat made El Prez feel special on his fake special day.
2.0
Chuck E. Cheese proved to be one of the worst culinary and atmospheric experiences of my life. In theory the idea of a bad-pizza meeting was good, however this was everything but. Having never eaten rabbit turds, I can only guess that the sausage was shaped in that form because it was in fact inspired by fecal matter. With that being said, the sausage piece was actually the highlight of my pizza experience at Chuck E. Cheese. The pepperoni and mushroom pizza was simply inedible. A bit of research turned up what I suspect is the source of the pepperoni that Chuck E. Cheese uses, Chewties.
1.1
I enjoyed the skee ball, even if I constantly had to pick up children who were trying to steal my balls or crawl up on my lane. I did not have the usual panicked feeling that I do around that many crazy children, (similar to what Andrew ended up having), but I did decompress and prepare at Webster Wine Bar beforehand. So, all was okay; I got my skee ball on.
The pizza was terrible, of course, but edible. I disagree with MCH's opinion that it was below Domino's; I've recently had Domino's, and I think it was slightly better. I also disagree with Neil that the sausage pizza was the best; I thought it was horrid -- the meat on it was pure filth. At places like this, cheese is the way to go, and fortunately they had parm and red pepper flakes, which can always make a slice of cheese just A-OK... -ish.
I give it a 2.
Ditto.
2 out of 10.
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