ShowBiz Pizza Place
ShowBiz Pizza Place, often shortened to ShowBiz Pizza or ShowBiz, was an American family entertainment center and restaurant pizza chain founded in 1980 by Robert L. Brock and Creative Engineering (CEI). It emerged after a separation between Brock and owners of the Chuck E. Cheese franchise, Pizza Time Theatre. ShowBiz Pizza restaurants entertained guests through a large selection of arcade games, coin-operated rides, and animatronic stage shows.
Original logo first used in 1980 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Restaurant |
| Founded | December 1979 (Showbiz Pizza Inc.) March 3, 1980 |
| Founder | |
| Defunct | mid-1990s |
| Fate | Merged into Chuck E. Cheese |
| Successor | Chuck E. Cheese |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
| Products | Pizza |
| Parent | ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. |
The two companies became competitors and found early success, partly due to the rise in popularity of arcade games during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The type of animatronics used in the ShowBiz Pizza chain distinguished it from its rival, which offered many of the same services. When Pizza Time Theatre declared bankruptcy in 1984, ShowBiz merged with the struggling franchise to settle a former court settlement mandate, emerging as ShowBiz Pizza Time. Following a severing of ties with CEI in 1990, ShowBiz Pizza locations were rebranded as Chuck E. Cheese locations, which took several years to complete.