So as most of you know I grew up in Eureka, a small town in Northern California, in the County of Humboldt. It is also known as the emerald triangle, well because of the marijuana, but also because it is like stepping back in time when you are up there. It also kind of traps you and you can't get away. Anyway it is not a place that really embraces chains and so I grew up in a place with no Chuck E Cheese.  I know, what kind of childhood could I possibly have had without the Chuck E Cheese experience.


So one day I was talking to one of my besties and she was talking about her kids bday party at Chuck E Cheese. I happened to mention that I have never had the pleasure of experiencing this large mouse in person. So she made it her goal to give me that experience and yesterday that is exactly what she did.


We got to Chuck E Cheese at 130 W Hillcrest Dr in Thousand Oaks at 11am. We were ready to play games, dance with the mouse and eat some pizza. She was actually concerned about whether or not I wanted to eat there, but I told her I truly needed the full experience. Let me just say I have seriously been missing out. This place was happening! It was filled with 50 kids in orange shirts, probably some summer camp, and 25 other random kids and their families, all excited to share in my maiden Chuck E Cheese voyage.

One of the most interesting things I learned about Chuck E Cheese is that it is pedophile proof, well maybe not proof, but it tries to decrease the accessibility. Every kid and adult has to get a stamp so you can't wander off with extra kids. Thought that was a good plan until the end when they couldn't find my friends daughters stamp and they let us take her anyway. This was even funnier because we are both brunettes and her daughter has platinum blond hair and doesn't look a whole lot like either one of us. Oopsie!

So as soon as we got there we decided to place our order. We ordered pizza and salad and...get this...Chuck E Cheese has wine!! So of course we had to order it, right? We had 2 options-pink or white. We asked about red, but that just wasn't an option, so we opted for pink.


And we were both pretty thrilled by the fact that our wine came out of a keg, in the wall, always a good sign, right? NOT! But don't worry it did not stop us from drinking it.


Then we got to play games. I learned how to play skeeball, seriously a good time! I also got to play hoops...hmmm not my area of expertise at 5'4.


And I played "pig out" which is a game where you shoot balls into a pigs mouth as he opens and closes it...had to play it just because of the food theme.


I do have to say that the staff was amazing. They were all super helpful and one guy was pretty amazed that I was a Chuck E Cheese virgin. He asked me if I grew up in Canada, but alas I had to break his pretty little 15 year old heart when I told him I actually grew up in Nor Cal. He did ask me how he could make my first experience memorable? For clarification, we are still talking about Chuck E Cheese. So my friend recommended letting me experience the "ticket blaster," wow what a memorable event!



If you are unfamiliar with the ticket blaster it is a booth that you stand in, which blows air at you and blows tickets in the air. The goal is to catch the tickets, but I did not excel at this area. However, I did have really good wind blown dance moves, if I do say so myself.

One of the other highlights was trying to get our picture taken with the Chuck E Cheese statue in the car photo booth. However, we quickly learned that this car was designed for people even shorter than myself, so it was not the most successful of photos.

Sorry,  for a little bit there I forgot I was a food blog, just because I was so enamored by the environment. Anyway we got our pizza and salads. And I have to say the pizza wasn't bad. We had a pizza that had half pepperoni and half sausage. It was perfect for what it was! You don't go to Chuck E Cheese looking for the world's best pizza, you go for a fun time,  some great games and some good 'ol family bonding. However, if you want to know how many calories are in your food they are posted on the menu board. Wow that was a buzz kill!!


Now I thought you would like to know some random Chuck E Cheese facts. Did you know?

• Chuck E Cheese started as a rat but in 1997 he became a mouse
• The middle name of Chuck E Cheese is Entertainment
• The restaurant opened in 1977
• The founder of Chuck E Cheese, also founded Atari
• The first location was in San Jose but there is now 542 of the restaurants
• In 2012 Chuck E Cheese underwent a makeover to make him look more like a rock star...oh thank god for that