In response to a YouTube theory video published earlier this week, Chuck E. Cheese emphatically denied ever taking uneaten pizza and splicing it together with fresh pizza.
“The claims made in this video about Chuck E. Cheese and our pizza are unequivocally false,” a representative for Chuck E. Cheese said on Tuesday. “No conspiracies here — our pizzas are made to order and we prepare our dough fresh in restaurant, which means that they’re not always perfectly uniform in shape, but always delicious.”
According to Fox News, YouTuber Shane Dawson, who boasts 20 million followers, published a scathing investigative video that alleged the famed children’s establishment actually repurposes old pizza and presents it as new.
“Dawson referred to online photos of whole Chuck E. Cheese pizzas that appeared to have been comprised of mismatched slices, and even alleged to have seen the ‘misplaced’ pizza slices in person, during his own visits as a child,” reports Fox News.
In the video, Dawson described how he always felt Chuck E. Cheese signature dishes felt like “misplaced pizzas” when visiting there as a kid. He also claimed a girl he knew in high school said she had heard of this practice without presenting evidence.
“In the video, titled ‘Investigating Conspiracies with Shane Dawson,’ Dawson and a friend visit a Chuck E. Cheese and order a few pizzas, with Dawson later concluding that ‘there’s something going on,’ with the mismatched slices,” the report continued. “He and a friend are also seen inspecting a couple of Chuck E. Cheese pizzas at home, where they try to move the slices around to see if they can make the pieces fit.”
Dawson ultimately did not come to a definitive conclusion, admitting it all just may be an “optical illusion.” It could also very well be wishful thinking or confirmation bias. Needless to say, the investigation prompted a firestorm of controversy on social media. One Reddit user, claiming to be an employee of the pizza chain, said the weird appearance occurs during the slicing process.
“All the slices are from the same pizza, it’s just when the pizza comes out of the oven, they place it on a cutting board in order to slice it. The slicer is very large and kind of heavy, so some ppl have a lot of difficulty trying to cut the pizza perfectly. [That’s] why some slices are different sizes [than] others,” the Reddit user wrote. “After the pizza is done being cut, the cook slides it onto a tray to carry out to the guests. It’s when the pizza is being slid off of the cutting board and onto the tray where it gets kind of wonky looking.”
“I’ve never seen them try to mush different pizza parts together into a full pizza before,” the employee continued. “However, I can only speak for my store, so there might be [one] out there that might try to pull this, but I don’t think anyone would be able to keep on pulling something like that for years without getting caught/getting too many complaints.”
The employee added that the corporate structure of Chuck E. Cheese runs a tight ship that will immediately discipline stores if they should slip in sales or online reviews.
“Corporate is very strict and is constantly checking and pushing us to upsell everything, so if a store starts to dip in reviews/ratings/sales the district manager of the region will come in and investigate,” said the employee. “Also, they have a ton of cameras everywhere in the which they do a bunch of random audits on, so it would be really hard to do something like that.”