It’s my opinion that Chuck E. Cheese pizza should be scarfed down near a ball pit while an anthropomorphic mouse sings “Happy Birthday” to a screaming child somewhere. For many of a certain age, these are precious memories. But regardless of your sentiments, the doughy, suspiciously lopsided pies of Chuck E. Cheese can hardly be associated with good pizza, or even pizza that’s passable enough to satisfy a craving for delivery.
So it was a surprise to learn that Chuck E. Cheese pizza can be consumed in the comfort of your own home, delivered via on-demand apps such as Grubhub, as was revealed last month when a Reddit user documented their experience of accidentally ordering from the children’s entertainment center. Pizza made in the kitchens of select Chuck E. Cheese locations is sold under the name “Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings” on Grubhub, allowing the business to generate revenue while technically remaining closed due to the coronavirus. The brand is owned by CEC Entertainment, Inc., which also owns Chuck E. Cheese, and a trademark registration was filed for the restaurant name on April 16, 2020. (The name derives from one Pasqually P. Pieplate, an Italian chef character and drummer for Chuck E. Cheese’s resident rock band.)
“This new brand is the latest example of CEC Entertainment creatively adjusting to meet the needs of consumers in a unique way, allowing for more variety and convenient options available for delivery,” a spokesperson for CEC Entertainment told Today Food this week. They also said that Pasqually’s uses different ingredients from the standard Chuck E. Cheese pie to produce a “more premium pizza experience.”
To make up for a loss of foot traffic as customers take measures to slow the spread of Covid-19, restaurants are scrambling to find creative new angles on their businesses. Some eateries are now selling groceries, while others are renting out unused kitchens to commissary companies. Chuck E. Cheese seems to have come up with the tactic of masquerading as a small business to market menu items that might otherwise be unappealing to consumers — an approach that could be adopted by more restaurants as the coronavirus continues to push restaurants and their customers toward delivery.
The strategy isn’t new, and large chains have created separate brands, or “virtual restaurants,” on delivery apps for years. Like Chuck E. Cheese, physical restaurants operate these online brands out of their kitchens, sometimes serving the same food to customers who are none the wiser. Many are outed by the addresses they list on delivery apps, which are the same as brick-and-mortar restaurants with different names, and customers aren’t always happy when they spot the overlap. In the United Kingdom, for example, fast-casual chains like Frankie & Benny’s sold identical menu items under “trendy” sub-brands to the ire of customers who said they would have avoided those restaurants if they knew where the food was made.
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