Chuck E. Cheese

About

Reviewers who travel for it call this the last legacy Chuck E. Cheese on the west coast — the original animatronic band, still installed and still performing — and that one fact drives a surprising amount of the traffic. A parent brings her fifteen- and seventeen-year-olds an hour each way, a couple of times a year, on the strength of an online fandom that has grown up around the old shows. Another family drove three hours for a tenth birthday, found the animatronics dead, stayed the night, came back, and got them running only because a member of staff went and asked permission. Call ahead.

Beyond the stage it is a small branch — one visitor's verdict was that it should be called a micro version of the chain — with the usual games, the usual prize counter and a bill that catches people out. A parent totted up more than a hundred dollars for three children for one hour before any food, and itemized the rest: the small play area charged separately, socks charged, the wristband that used to hold the play card no longer included, and one pause per card however that pause got used.

Reviewers split hard on the front of house. A weekly regular, and the family whose trip was rescued by an employee, sit on one side; two separate complaints about a manager's manner sit on the other. Go for the animatronics, and go on a weekday — every report of an uncrowded floor here is midday, midweek.