San Jose, CA (2445 Fontaine Rd)

2445 Fontaine Rd, Store #206/3001 also known as Tully is a Chuck E. Cheese location that opened in December of 1981 with a Balcony Stage.

This store is known for being the largest in the United States. The building was formerly a Magic Village Toy Store before becoming a Pizza Time Theatre in 1981. This one-of-a-kind location is known for having a 30-foot Chuck E. Cheese statue facing toward a neighboring road.

Stages
When the location opened, it housed a Balcony Stage and then later, Chuck E.’s House Facade. Lounge / Cabaret acts consisted of Dollie Dimples and the Beagles. The Beagles would be placed inside a display window to entertain guests. Both of these acts would be removed before 1991. This location also had two sets of Warblettes.

Between 1993 and 1994, the Chuck E.'s House Facade was removed and the 2-Stage was Installed.

In 2001, Studio C was installed. Because it was one of the last originals installed in a location, the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic received the 'Cool Chuck' outfit. As for the Cyberamic characters, Chuck E. Cheese Cyberamic was put on display at the front entrance of the store, while the other characters were sold off to different people and or parted out for different locations in the area.

In the 2010s, the Interactive Console and Blue Screen camera were removed. As time passed, the condition of the show in general was beyond repair. In December 2018 Fontaine received the Circles of Light then the Chuck E. Live Stage in May 2022.

Pizza Time Theatre
In 1974, the building opened as Magic Village Toy Store. It featured three giant toy soldiers enclosed in giant display windows. It gained a reputation for being such a large toy store. A local legend about the store told that a girl tragically once died from falling from the store's third floor. Locals said that the ghost of the girl haunts the building to this day. It went out of business sometime in the 1970s and briefly became a discotheque before reopening as a PTT in 1981.

The location had a vast kiddie area, being one of the few locations to feature Chuck E.'s Play N' Place and a large under-the-sea themed ball-pit area that featured Chuck E.' Cheese's Tinker Towers.

Chuck E. Cheese Statue
When the location was still Magic Village, it had three giant toy soldiers enclosed in illuminated windows facing toward Tully Rd. These were later salvaged and sent back to the original owner before closing. Having three empty windows, Nolan Bushnell wanted a large Chuck E. Cheese statue to be placed inside one of these windows.

Before the location opened, artist Jeff Tritel was commissioned to create the 30-foot statue. A smaller bronze desktop prototype was also created for PTT executives. Because Tritel was alone creating the statue, he had to work all day and night. Tritel even had to sleep inside of the store to meet ends meet.

The finished statue was of Chuck E. Cheese sitting on a large block of cheese holding a microphone in one hand and waving the other. Shortly after it was installed it was discovered that a homeless person was living inside of the cheese the Chuck E. sat on. "About twenty five years ago I visited the Pizza Time Theatre (Chuck E. Cheese started out as Pizza Time Theatre) corporate offices looking for work. I had heard that they were working with audio animatronic characters and I thought that I might fit in with their design and engineering staff. Armed with my sculpture portfolio I was brought before their lead engineer and after a brief interview was told that I didn’t have the skill set to be a member of his team.

''However, Pizza Time Theatre had just purchased a new building to be used as a restaurant and training facility and it so happened that on the outside of this building there was (and still is) a 40 foot tall, semi-circular window. The next thing I knew I was sitting down with Nolan Bushnell and the Pizza Time executives and they were asking if I would like to build a 30-foot-tall Chuck E. Cheese for their new building! Never having done anything on this scale before, my answer was a resounding, “SURE, I can do it!”''

''I actually had no idea how; I’d figure that out later. Six months and 5,000 pounds of polyurethane foam and fiberglass later, I had the dubious distinction of building the largest pizza-eating rat in the world along with 8 bronze desktop versions for Nolan and his executives." -'' Jeff Tritel

Training Center & Test Kitchen / CEC University
Shortly after opening, the store would be the exclusive host of the PTT Training Center & Test Kitchen program. This would be held on the third floor employee-only area for training employees from other locations. The test kitchen portion would allow Pizza Time Theatre to standardize its menu lineup for 1982, alongside being able to test and refine future menu releases. This program would end in 1984 with the merger of Showbiz Pizza Place and Pizza Time Theatre companies. The center would later reopen at some point as CEC University for training General Managers. For unknown reasons, the center would close again and would be used for storage. Plenty of historical items from the location's history would be held here, most of which are later sent to CEC stores within the area for replacements.

Disney's Cease and Desist
Around the restaurant were several unique murals. Some relocated from one of Pizza Time Theatre's costume departments. One of these murals, "Royal Order of Rodents", featured characters outside of Pizza Time Theatres ownership. The most notable of these are Mickey and Minnie Mouse. On October 13, 1989, Disney sent the location a cease and desist, causing them to throw away the murals immediately. However, most if not all of these murals were recovered at a later date and displayed out of the public eye on the third floor.

Chuck E. Cheese's
Roughly around 1991, the location was remodeled into Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza as part of the 1986 SPT Remodel Program. At this time, Fontaine also received customized multi-colored booths and interior décor. In 1992 the location is featured in two pieces of official media from Showbiz Pizza Time's Entertainment Department. The first of which is a tape for employees that summited footage of various live performances. Then as part of SPT filming in California, they visited the Fontaine location to feature in "Little Red Corvette".

In December 2000 the location became one of the last to receive a brand new remodel from the 1994 SPT Remodel Program. When Skytubes were introduced to this location they originally cut through the wall above the 2-Stage, giving a top-down view of the showroom for people inside, however In 2007 the Toddler Zone from Phase III and the Skytubes from Phase I are removed for unknown reasons. In May 2007 fan convention Cheese-Vention 4 is held at this location.

In December 2018, Fontaine started their 2.0 remodel, being completed later in 2019. This would be the final United States location to receive a Circles of Light show.

On March 26, 2023, the Chuck E. Cheese Cyberamic character was rediscovered to be on display at Revival Collectibles in Grand Ledge, MI. The animatronic is only on display and is not for sale.

COVID 19
During the Coronavirus pandemic, the location was temporarily closed and fears of it permanently closing were high. The property was listed on Loop.Net on October 16, 2020 but taken down at a later date.

To keep the location afloat, the owner had to sell items held inside the former CEC University center. This included signage, prototypes, and animatronic parts.

Trivia

 * Before Franchised CECs were renumbered to four digit numbers in 2010, San Jose (Fontaine) was Store #206 according to the old chuckecheese.com website from 2009. It was renumbered to Store #3001 when Corporate renumbered Franchised stores with four digit numbers. The store number will be reused for the upcoming Valley Stream, NY location in 2023.