Not many know CEC Entertainment, but they know Chuck E.Cheese. This globally recognized entertainment and dining brand has seen it’s fair share of reboots since its founding days in Silicon Valley back in the 1970’s.  A company that hosts half a million birthday parties and two billion game plays every year, their slogan, “Where a kid can be a kid everyday ®” has been repeated (or sung) in most every American household with kiddos. Part of a system of family destinations under the bigger umbrella of CEC Entertainment, the brand boasts over 600 restaurants around the globe.  

 With a new CEO joining in January 2020, David McKillips jumped headfirst into a Chuck-E Ball Pit—just as the global pandemic forced all of their locations to close. His decades of experience in family entertainment at Six Flags, DC Comics, Sea World and Sesame Place, were just what the doctor (or the board) ordered for this hands-on transformation and financial restructuring.   

A nightmare of a situation for a first-time, location-based entertainment CEO to encounter on day one, David led the company from an ineludible Chapter 11 filing to quickly launching Pasqually’s Pizza—all while (more importantly) rebooting the iconic brand into a global platform. Together with Chuck E.Cheese, Peter Piper Pizza (a growing regional fresh-made pizza restaurant), and Pasqually’s Pizza and Wings(one of the first virtual kitchen delivery-only brands) the group employs 13,000 people in a market that’s projected to be over $40 billion by 2027.  

To uncover and unpack some of CEC’s  reboot story, David and I had this fascinating chat on The Reboot Chronicles podcast.