Just in time for IAAPA, Chuck E. Cheese last week rolled out one of its newest concepts for the first time in Orlando.
The venerable brand has been launching a series of smaller arcades set within hotels across the country. The Orlando debut for the Chuck E. Cheese Fun Spot Arcade will be at Marriott Village in Lake Buena Vista.
It joins other locations in Oklahoma, Texas, New York and Connecticut.
The space has been branded along one wall with the well known cast of characters from the Chuck E. Cheese universe. The idea is to give hotel guests another option for their recreational time while on vacation.
“We want to give them a little bit of that small slice of an arcade where guests can do this, enjoy it and then enjoy the rest of their trip,” said Tony Barron, Chuck E. Cheese’s national VP of purchasing and games.
The challenge was that most spaces the arcades have popped up have had limited space, meaning the chosen games had to be specific to each location.
“If they only see it one time and get a taste of what we have, maybe they’re only in this area one time, but there’s another one nearby, right?” Barron said.
Chuck E. Cheese launched in a 5,000-square-foot location in 1977 in San Jose, Calif. It was the first restaurant of its kind, offering kids and families pizza, animatronics and indoor arcades.
The company’s path has been littered with ups and downs, including a bankruptcy in the mid-1980s. Chuck E. Cheese emerged as the name that stuck during that time.
In recent years, the company struggled through the pandemic and went through another bankruptcy in December of 2020.
The Orlando announcement, however, is another part of its post-pandemic emergence, Barron said. Several locations are set to debut next year.
“We experienced that demand for things to do (post pandemic),” he said. “When you come out, you want to see new games, new technology and new offerings.”
The company spent part of its pandemic cementing in place token-less options and e-tickets, among other technologies.
The timing and location of the announcement debut of the arcades was intentional, Barron said, seeing as how Orlando is home to more than 500 hotels and IAAPA was in town.
“The hotels want to give different offerings to guests and we are here to support that,” he said. “At trade shows, you see a lot of business that comes in and it’s not just people representing the businesses but it’s their families, too.”
As Chuck E. Cheese finishes a remodeling project of all of its sites, the company has turned to focus on its near future by putting high-tech features alongside its lower-tech classics like trampoline parks.
“All of these things we have been doing have been a step ladder to what we hope will bring people out to Chuck E. Cheese,” Barron said.
The goal is to bring some of the people who have been longtime patrons back to the stores while also attracting a new generation.
“The Chuck E. of 5 years ago was very different,” Barron said. “It’s newer now. Fresher. It looks better.”