It's not exactly a store, but definitely somewhere people go and spend a lot of money. I worked there for a year as a cashier, and people frequently spent $50-100+ on tokens and food for their kids. People also spent crazy amounts of money on the toys- these toys can almost all be bought elsewhere for MUCH cheaper. We charged $4 for things I saw at the dollar store. Also, there are many very efficient coupons online for the tokens and food. Paying full price for what Chuck E. Cheese has to offer is a major rip off to the customer. But if you really want to make your kids happy, finding the really good coupons is a great way to do it- the price isn't actually that bad with them. (Unless the child is very spoiled and demands more- I've seen my fair share of tantrums for more tokens!) The email club on chuckecheese.com is a good place to start, but there are better coupons available. Just be sure it has an expiration date on it and is not expired- we cannot use expired or fake coupons, and there are quite a few out there. If a coupon lacks an expiration date, it is almost certainly fake.
That's really good to know about checking for expiration days, I had no idea about that. I did learn to use to coupons from the website and that has saved us quite a bit of money . My kids just love that place, personally, the food is terrible. I could get a better pizza frozen for like $5.00. But, I love that we have to get stamped and checked at the door and I feel safe letting my kids just run and play and be kids for a couple of hours. Every game is only one token, and so many of them give tickets. I know I could never work there. It's just to loud for me, I would go insane. I can't image working there my head would just pound. Good job making it a year there!
As a former arcade worker, I'm not sure I can recommend any place like Chuck E. Cheese to a discerning consumer. It costs tons of money once you add up the food and tokens, and the hygiene involved in setting up a place like Chuck is somewhat gross. I've cleaned my share of arcade machines, sometimes spending an hour scrubbing with windex and bleach water and paper towels, and those things are nasty. Nasty. And they aren't cleaned every day, there's just too many. It's very easy for a kid to get sick from all that.
The bottom line is the kids love it, but there are definitely hygiene issues. There were a number of times that children pooped/puked in the sky tube, and the employees aren't paid enough to clean it as thoroughly as they should. We do clean everything each night, but with windex! We used windex for EVERYTHING. Off brand, of course. The only thing we actually disinfected was the floors. It counts for something with the number of kids that run around barefoot, but the machines and areas little kids put their hands and mouths on all the time are not disinfected regularly. I personally liked the food at the one I worked at, but it probably depends on who's cooking. There are worse things, and if it makes the kids happy it is worth it with the coupons. Maybe training your kids to use hand sanitizer regularly and not touch their face would help. I never heard of any mass sickness outbreaks or anything like that. We kept the food standards fairly high as far as safety and cleanliness, so it all depends on how much is going on. Also, it's much better to go during the week. There's maybe five people in there during the day, but hundreds and hundreds on weekends and Friday nights.
Places like those are a lot of fun, and they constantly offer good coupons if you are willing to look. True, it's still expensive, but I think that the lack of good arcades in any given city gives Chuck E Cheese the advantage of being the only game in town, so to speak---they get to set the prices for their product accordingly. We need some competition in the market!
