Which stores kept a working stage?
Five locations in the United States still had animatronics running when the removals finished at the end of 2024. IEEE Spectrum named them: Northridge, California; Springfield, Illinois; Hicksville, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Nanuet, New York.
Four of the five run Munch's Make Believe Band, the group of Chuck E. Cheese, Mr. Munch, Helen Henny, Jasper T. Jowls and Pasqually. Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley, is the one fans drive across a state to see, because for several months it was the only store the company planned to spare.
Nanuet is the odd one out. It keeps a solo Chuck E. set rather than the full band, so a family arriving there expecting five singing robots finds one.
Everywhere else the stage is now a wall. CEC Entertainment operated 559 Chuck E. Cheese locations when it left bankruptcy in December 2020, so five surviving stages works out to fewer than one store in a hundred. The rest of the chain got the same package: screens, a dance floor and a trampoline zone.
Why did CEC Entertainment take the robots out?
The company announced the retirement of Munch's Make Believe Band in November 2023 and finished the removals by the end of 2024, as part of a rebrand that also changed the menu, the lighting and the logo.
David McKillips, then the chief executive of CEC Entertainment, put the decision down to how children spend their attention now. "Kids, really of all ages, are consuming their entertainment on a screen," he told TODAY in 2025, describing the overhaul as the company's "most aggressive transformation."
The replacements are physical rather than theatrical. IEEE Spectrum described the swap plainly: the moving figures came out and video screens, dance floors and trampolines went in. A stage takes floor space that a trampoline zone can monetize by the hour, and a video wall can be updated from a laptop.
There is also a supply problem behind the decision. Nobody has manufactured these robots for decades, and the five stages still standing are kept alive with parts pulled from the ones that were taken down.
Where did the retired animatronics end up?
A large number of them went to Topeka, Kansas. Fortune reported in November 2023 that dozens of Chuck E. Cheese robots, in various states of disrepair, sit in a warehouse there and serve as the parts bin for the bands still performing.
Others went to private collectors. Complete stages and single characters move through hobbyist groups and classified listings rather than any retail channel, which is why there is no published price for one.
The company held some back for itself. A Chuck E. Cheese spokesperson told Fortune in 2023, "We have preserved some for our 50th anniversary," which lands in 2027, the fiftieth year since the first store opened.
A few survivors are back in public view. Chuck's Arcade, the spin-off aimed at adults rather than at eight-year-olds, began opening in shopping malls in 2025 with a retired character standing in each one as a display piece instead of a performer. That is the same nostalgia trade running through the return of the coin-op arcade, aimed at the people who were children the first time around.
Where to find one today
Complete stages almost never reach a storefront, and the ones that do change hands privately between collectors. The affordable end of this hobby is the small stuff: arcade tokens stamped with the year, prize-counter toys, birthday badges, cups and show tapes, which turn up in quantity on Etsy's vintage Chuck E. Cheese listings. Tokens are the usual starting point, and the common years are still easy to find.
How one surviving store turned into five
The original plan was a single exception. Fortune reported in November 2023 that the band would play on in Northridge, California, and nowhere else in the chain.
That went badly. Adults who had spent birthdays in front of the stage complained loudly enough that the company reopened the question in 2024, and by the time the removals were complete at the end of that year, IEEE Spectrum counted five locations with animatronics rather than one.
The four additions were not a restoration. Nothing was rebuilt or brought back from the warehouse; the company simply stopped removing four stages that were already there, and designated those stores as the places where the show continues.
Nothing protects them beyond company policy. There is no trust, no landmark status and no contract, which is why fans track the five stores the way collectors track a discontinued format.
Who owns Chuck E. Cheese in 2026?
CEC Entertainment owns the chain, and CEC Entertainment is owned by the investors who held its debt. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in June 2020 after the pandemic closed its dining rooms, and emerged on December 30, 2020, having eliminated 705 million dollars of debt. It counted 559 Chuck E. Cheese and 122 Peter Piper Pizza locations on the day it came out.
By 2026 that had hardened into private equity ownership. D Magazine reported in August 2026 that six private equity groups together hold about 90 percent of CEC Entertainment, and that the company is not publicly traded.
The leadership turned over as well. Scott Drake, who joined as chief financial officer in 2024, became president and chief executive in February 2026. Under him the company counts nearly 700 venues across 47 states and 17 countries, is opening its first store in the United Kingdom, and expects five or six more Adventure World locations by January 2027.
The company that started this was a side project of the arcade business. Chuck E. Cheese was founded in 1977 by Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari, as a room where a family could eat pizza while the machines paid the rent. The chain outlived the 1983 video game crash that took most of that industry down with it, and the robots outlived the arcade cabinets by forty years.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Chuck E. Cheese still have animatronics in 2026?
Yes, but only at five Chuck E. Cheese locations in the United States: Northridge, California; Springfield, Illinois; Hicksville, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Nanuet, New York. Every other store lost its stage by the end of 2024, when CEC Entertainment finished the removal it announced in November 2023.
Where did the Chuck E. Cheese animatronics go?
Dozens of retired Chuck E. Cheese robots went to a warehouse in Topeka, Kansas, where Fortune reported in November 2023 that they supply spare parts for the stages still running. Others went to private collectors, and a set was preserved by the company for the chain's 50th anniversary in 2027.
Why did Chuck E. Cheese get rid of Munch's Make Believe Band?
CEC Entertainment retired Munch's Make Believe Band as part of a rebrand completed at the end of 2024, replacing the stages with video walls, dance floors and trampoline zones. Chief executive David McKillips told TODAY in 2025 that children of all ages now take their entertainment from a screen.