The early CECPTT locations (1977-1979)

[dheineCECfan]

Do you think there could be a listing of the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre locations that opened between 1977 and 1979? I think some of these come to mind:
The early 3 San Jose, California locations - Winchester Blvd. (The first ever CECPTT location that opened in 1977), Tully Rd. (Home to the former CECPTT University), and Kooser Road (Both Tully and Kooser opened in 1978) . I think the Hayward, California location opened in 1978-1979. The first Southern California CECPTT location might have been Northridge opened about 1979. I think CECPTT entered the San Diego area with its first San Diego location in 1979. And the first CECPTT location outside of California might have been the Odgen, Utah location opened in 1979 and closed down in 1992 (Pics of the location taken in 1991 are in Trey's Pics Page in the Picture Gallery).
I think there may have been at least 1 to a few to several more CECPTT locations that opened around 1978-1979 in California state or outside California state. (A footnote: Kansas City, Missouri almost got a CECPTT in 1979 but instead the first ShowBiz Pizza Place opened in the city in Antioch Center)

[CEC3066]

Tully opened later than the 70's as it used to be a toy store

[dheineCECfan]

I could add Redwood City, California to the list of early 1977-1979 CECPTT locations that opened during the 1977-1979 period.

[xarnradio]

montgomery alabama opned in 1978 on atlanta highway as cecptt and closed in 1985 to merge with showbiz on east south blvd. which now it's a CEC.

interesting tidbit, after the CECPTT location on atlanta highway closed, from 1985-1999 that location went through several incarnations of night clubs, in early 2001 it became paul's body shop, a buddy of mine on the renovation team that fixed up the building for the body show discovered a storage room that was sealed off, in the storage room was the several animatronic characters, including a pasqually mech and various parts and pieces, the pasqually mech was given to the alabama state archives for their pop culture exhibitions and i think ultimately given to the smithsonian in washington, dc

[captslappy]

Very interesting that several of you mention that former PTTs became various night clubs. One of the two locations I went to first was a restaurant called Randy's. Then it became some other upscale restaurant. After that, it too became a series of night clubs. The last time I checked it was a dance club called Blackberry.

As for the other store I visited whcih was the older of the 2, it became a hardware store or a paint store. I forget. I am not sure what it is now. It seems like it was a paint store for years and last I was by there it had been vacant for a long time. Maybe it's a night club now too.

[Harmony Howlette rules]

The first Southern California CECPTT location might have been Northridge opened about 1979
That's a great store...
it was also where they filmed the infamous 'Ace' sequence from 'Made'!
I didn't know it was such an early PTT!

[dheineCECfan]

xarnradio: So, a CECPTT opened in 1978-1979 in Montgomery, Alabama. Might have been at the time Nolan Bushnell was neglogating with Bob Brock to open a chain of CECPTT franchises in the Midwest and South states (but instead Bob Brock did a deal with Aaron Fechter's Creative Engeneering to use Aaron's robot shows - Wolf Pack 5 and later Rock-afire Explosion - for a new CECPTT rival called ShowBiz Pizza Place).

[xarnradio]

i believe you are right, the current location of what's now CEC opened on the south side of montgomery i believe around 1980-81 with the RAE.

after the merger both stored combined into one, but since at the time all the business and the traffic was on the south side with SPP, HQ decided to close atlanta highway, around 1988.

the building stayed closed up until 1989 when a group of investors bought it and tuned it into a night club called roper'r rockin' country, then in 1992 it was sold off and became the localy infamous Sharkey's nightclub, infamous because of numerous fights, shootings, drive by's, drug dealing and prostitution that went on both inside and outside.

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Wow man...

A sad fate for a old ex-PTT location....

[captslappy]

I just wonder what goodies may have been left behind and found later at some of these former PTT locations or if you went into some of these places you could see remnance of where things used to be. It's unlikely but you might be able to see where the old balcony stage might have been, etc.

[dheineCECfan]

Maybe TreyTX could give background on the opened in 1979 and closed in 1992 CECPTT location in Odgen, Utah.

[CEC3066]

I remember from an email I got from him a couple years ago in his plans for the Ogden remodel he had found the C stage conversaion kit behind the skee ball lanes

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Over the years i have wondered about this too...WHERE were the first few locations. Naturally they were all in CA, with San Jose being the first. It has been found that about 8 to 9 locations were thought to be operating by 1980, and shortly after that point PTT exploded into a breakneck speed expansion.

Another very useful clue in discovering the early stores is the old game tokens from that period. Many early stores had there own custom minted PTT Tokens that displayed the location name on the face of the coin. These were used from 77' until 1981.

So any of those stores listed on those first 4 years worth of tokens will tell you what locations exsisted then.

San Jose, Fullerton, Citrus Heights, all in CA....as well as Arlington TX ( 81') are in this group.

Anyone who seriously collect old tokens ( Vega, are you reading this?) could probably list all the stores based on the coins alone. Naturally there may be locations that did not have the custom minted versions, but i would wager most did when they opened.

[bzier]

I've also found tokens from Fort Myers and Winter Park here in Florida dated 1980...so I know there were locations over here at least that early.

[VegaNova]

Well since I have my token album sitting right here by my feet....

I might point out also that the city tokens were used until 1983.

That 1983 is really cool. It's Maplewood, MN and I just got mine in a trade about a month ago. It has the classic design with the city name on the front, but the reverse is the common 1983 reverse with the thinner lines and thin, small date.

BUT... here's the early ones. Let me remind you that these were all franchise options and not everyone used them meaning there could have been other stores. Plus maybe even other 'coporate' stores, as I'm not sure how PTT ran things back then:

1978
San Jose, CA

1979
Concord, CA
Huntington Beach, CA
Sacramento, CA
Stockton, CA
Reno, NV

1980
Tucson, AZ
Fremont, CA
Fresno, CA
Long Beach, CA
San Ramon, CA
Santa Rosa, CA
Simi Valley, CA
Sunnyvale, CA
Westminter, CO
Kansas City, KS/MO
Reno / Sparks, NV
Raliegh, NC
Maple Heights, OH
Arlington, TX
Ogden, UT

1981
Mobile, AL
Citrus Heights, CA
Fullerton, CA
Garden Grove, CA
Hayward, CA
Lake Forest, CA
Modesto, CA
Pinole, CA
Clearwater, FL
Ft Meyers, FL
Jacksonville, FL
Winterpark, FL
Westland, MI
New Hope, MN
Memphis, TN
Salt Lake City, UT
Burlington, ON (canada)

1982
Blaine, MN
Burnsville, MN
Maplewood, MN
New Hope, MN

Whew... that's all that I have and I might have missed some. Keep in mind that I only posted the earliest known date for that city and not every year they made them there. Although I'm not collecting all metal variations with my collection, I believe most of what I'm missing are either die variations or metal variations (bronze vs brass) and I'm only missing 6 more... so this list should be pretty complete.

....don't ever ask me to type that out again. :bb_happy2:

[MMBBfan327]

Sweet! Thanx, Travis that's really cool!

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Awesome job Vega..thanks for posting that list!

I'm sure there were more, as i know Brandon, FL and Spring Hill (i think that was the town) were both open by 1981 but neither of them had custom coins.

Spring Hill was a very early store, maybe the first in FL as they opened with Foxy Colleen in 80' ( i bought there Guest Poster of her...). The buillding also had the original layout ( walkaround salad bar/standalone cash/merch) so it was definately one of the first.

Brandon was huge, and i have talked about it extensively before. It opened in the summer of 81' and i see Vegas list shows a lot of store opening in FL at that time. Neat to see that....

Very cool....surely someone somewhere has a list of PTT locations back then. With all the franchise buy backs and relocations over the years, you cannot simply go by the store numbers, or Corporates' offical list either. They always list my store Danvers as opening in 1985 and i know for a fact that is NOT true! It was 81'! It was 1985 that Corp BOUGHT out the original Danvers frachise. Many old ex-PTT's have a similar story i am sure...so when doing research folks, NEVER TRUST THE STORE NUMBERS ALONE!

I think a while back there was a thread going about how to ID a CEC Location. I remember writing a lot in it, about the tell tale signs of a Ex-PTT locations, hints on what year a store opened, etc. If there is any interest i can re-post some of that.