Chuck E Cheeses Adds Limited-Time Menu Items Plans Mac-Cheesy Pizza For October

IRVING, TX -- Chuck E. Cheese's is on a mission to keep its menu fresh and exciting. The FEC chain is now planning to roll out a macaroni-and-cheese pizza called Mac-Cheesy as its first limited-time menu item in October.

In April, the arcade-pizza chain revamped its menu to cater to millennial parents' palates, with the new tagline: "We're not playing games with your food anymore."

New dishes include thin-crust pizzas like Cali Alfredo, topped with spinach, chicken, mushrooms and sausages, along with chicken Caesar whole-wheat wraps, boneless wings and churros.

Parent company CEC Entertainment Inc. also owns the Phoenix-based Peter Piper Pizza chain, which it acquired last October. Gregory Casale, who had been Peter Piper's director of culinary development, is a former fine-dining chef, and is the driving force behind the menu repositioning for both chains.

"Kids are at the heart of everything we do at Chuck E. Cheese's, but kids don't come alone, and we want to make sure parents have just as enjoyable an experience as the kids do, especially when it comes to the food," said CEC Entertainment chief executive Tom Leverton.

CEC Entertainment, which is owned by private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC, operates and franchises 585 Chuck E. Cheese's stores and 140 Peter Piper Pizza units.