Chuck E. Cheese's Is Going Public

You may remember Chuck E. Cheese's fondly as a place of screaming kids and exhausting birthday parties, but in recent years, the chain has experienced fading interest and slumping sales. In 2014, it was sold in a $1.3 billion deal to Apollo Global Management, LLC ; now, sometime in 2017, the company will go public. Chuck E. Cheese's is expected to announce an IPO valued at over $1 billion.

"We've spent a lot of time working on mom and dad and that veto [vote]," Thomas Leverton, Chuck E. Cheese's CEO, told Nation's Restaurant News. "Your average kid who comes to Chuck E. wants to come 11 times a year; they come three times a year. The difference between that and the 11 times a year they want to come is the mom and dad veto."

Chuck E. Cheese's has also spent the last year upgrading the technology of the four-decades-old pizzeria/arcade with chip-activated cards instead of traditional game tokens. It has also tried to appeal to adults with a new beer and wine menu and healthier meal options.