Back when my kids were toddlers we spent at least one day at week at Chucky Cheese during the winter months. My kids loved it there and it provided many hours of family fun entertainment. We usually went on Thursday nights as it wasn't so packed like on the weekends plus Thursday was payday for me. Back then you spent twenty, twenty five bucks and had hours of fun plus pizza and drinks to boot. The last time we were there was on Halloween because it was so cold and nasty outside we decided we'd venture on over to Chucky Cheese but what we didn't realize was they had gone through one of their yearly transitions like they normally do changing things up bringing in different games and upgraded to using more video productions but they changed their price structure also. You bought cards that would last for so many minutes of game play and they were pricey. Pizza, drinks, and a half an hour for everyone to play games came to a hundred and fifteen dollars. Wow! I surely was surprised since I opted to pay to go to Chunky's over freezing outside. Luckily for me Grandpa decided to come along and I got a bit of financial relief with promises from the rest of them that never materialized. (lol) Even the new lighted dance floor couldn't convince me it was worth all that.
So I guess it came as no surprise to hear the announce that Chucky Cheese is going bankrupt. They are a couple billion dollars in debt...and that was before the corona virus which only added to their problems.
I don't know what compelled them to think that parents could afford that kind of entertainment on a regular basis. Just about every kid in our family celebrates their birthdays there. Now I understand why one of my grand kids mom wanted to try out a new place on one of their birthdays as they had went to Chuckys to have some fun and she said it had gotten quite expensive. We usually only spend that kind of money when we do our yearly trip to the zoo. This year we probably won't be doing that either as with the covid rules in place they are only letting in so many people at a time and you will have a time limit. Spending over a hundred bucks to get rushed isn't my idea of a fun time.
It's sad really when you think about it, it had become a generational thing to do. I don't know if it's because everything had become more expensive to operate or they raised prices to keep out the element that was giving Chucky's a bad name after several publicized stories of parents getting drunk there then brawling. Whatever the reason it looks like the at home covid Chucky parties we had might be our last.
I stopped by Chunky's and got pizza one day for a couple of the grand kids then I went home and blew up balloons, got a couple kool aid koolers out of the refrigerator and surprised them next door. This whole virus thing is confusing for kids and they'd been cooped up for weeks fearing the unknown of what was transpiring outside. Then this light bulb went off in my head and I thought go get some Chucky's, if they know Chucky is still out there that gives them a reality they can relate to, if Chucky is fine then the world still exist out there like how they can relate to it.
It went over so well I talked my other son into letting me come over finally and have an outside Chucky party. They had to be really cautious because one of their son's was born with respiratory problems that had him in the hospital for weeks after he was born and he continued on having problems going in and out of the hospital for a week or two for the first few years of his life. Plus their Grandpa isn't all that well either so caution abounds around there.
I grabbed a bunch of balloons, some kool aid koolers and stopped for a couple of pizza's and head on over to their house. They live in a end unit to an apartment complex which is rather nice because it gives them a bit more space around the house than others. It's a quiet apartment complex anyway and there is usually no one about but people walking their dogs. Next to the apartment complex is a large retailer that has a lot of green space behind them, then there is some sort of small anatomy college behind that.
That's where the parents are sitting....in the handicap zone no less...lol. It's nice and quiet over there so we took the kids toys down a small embankment and they had fun driving around a Denali grandpa bought them and trying out a new type of scooter that sways.
The parking lot was on a slight incline so it was easy to gain some speed going back down it. After he got bored with that he practiced his parking skills.
He's always been the one kid in the family fascinated by cars and trucks, being grandpa loves to spoil them they'd finally end up with a ride on.
It was a beautiful day spent after weeks of not having them over, that was pretty rough considering I have them over every other weekend if not most every weekend. Surprising them with Chucky's had the same reassuring effect that the world was still moving about out there and if Chucky was okay waiting for them to come back then things weren't quite so scary anymore. I knew they were scared the first time I saw them through their window a few weeks prior. I was standing out there with a mask on so I could talk to them through the window and they were fifty questions of wasn't I afraid of getting the virus. I surely am hoping the corporate heads at Chucky's get it together...that meant so much to them to connect them with something on their own level of being able to understand that the whole world wasn't falling apart, life was going to be okay and in the end Chucky would still be there.