Arlington, TX (1536 W Interstate 20)

Arlington, TX (1536 W Interstate 20) is the first Chuck E. Cheese Adventure World, that opened on November 7th, 2025.

History

Pre-Opening

The location would be registered with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation on June 30th, 2025, marked as ‘CHUCKE’S ADVENTURE WORLD’ and ‘ARCADES & ENTERTAINMENT CENTER’. The project was set to have already started on June 1st, and was set to complete by November 1st of the same year. The cost of the project was estimated at $800,000. ^[7]

The first mention of an Adventure World location would from a limited email survey sent out on July 17th, 2025. ^[1] Shortly after this, employee communications would reveal that the internal plans were to have the sub-brand be like a Chuck E. Cheese location, but without an arcade and featuring the Adventure Zone, which consists of Chuck E.’s Superhero Playground and the Trampoline Zone. It would also be communicated that the Brandon, FL (1540 W Brandon Blvd) store would be the designated store used to sell around the idea. ^[2]

On July 21st, Adventure World would make an apperance on the Promoted Companies website, represented by PC to look for valid real-estate in the Dallas Fort-Worth area, with site requirements of 12,000-18,000 sqft. AI generated concept art would show a building with slides, ball-pits, and indoor playgrounds adorned with CEC branding. A mock up of a building showing what the exterior design would look like was also shown, later found out to be of the Arlington location itself. ^[3]

On August 15th, CEC would do a press release for Adventure World, confirming a location in Arlington, TX with around 12,000 sqft. would open in early November, with 5-6 additional stores planned to open in 2026. ^[6] The same day, fans would discover the prior Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation page, giving the store’s exact address.

On October 2nd, job listings for the location would open for Game Room Attendant, Party Host, Cashier, Kitchen. Assistant Restaurant Manager listed on the 3rd, and Senior Assistant Restaurant Manager opened on the 10th. ^{[8][9][10][11][12][13]} On October 14th the first documented visit to the location would show the signage and logos up, confirming the final planned logo for Adventure World. The left side of the previous tenant’s exterior blue paint was changed to tan. Posters in the window for hiring and ‘Every Game Is Only One Point’ would be seen. Multiple shipping containers would be present in the parking lot, and the interior was barren with mainly tools and equipment around the floor. Between October 14th-24th, David McKillips, CEO of CEC, would post updates on Adventure World on his Instagram. These would include photos of the interior, which was the first time that claw machines were confirmed to be at the location. A billboard would also be present showing both Adventure World and Chuck E. Cheese locatiosn to visit.^{[15][16][17][18][19]} Sweepstakes would also be posted for a chance to win 2 free admission passes. ^[14]

On November 2nd another fan visit to the location would reveal more of the interior, new art on the windows, and a menu stating that ‘Game Tokens’ would be purchasable for the claw machines.^[20] Rumors around this time would also state the soft-opening for the store was planned for November 5th, and the Grand Opening for November 12th.^[2] On the 3rd a leak of CEC’s Month of Gratitude 2025 video would show more footage of the location.^[22] Around this time, a shoot was held at the location for a commercial and promotional photos, which also set up the store with a custom showtape playlist in the Navori System just for that day.

On November 6th, Adventure World’s website would update to include opening times, with the first day opened set for November 7th from 3pm to 10pm. Alongside this, CEC’s would begin airing a commercial for Adventure World that was entirely AI generated, likely as the commercial was filmed so late and had not finished editing.^[23] Nearing the end of the day, Justin Lee, Director of Construction and Facilities at CEC Corporate, would post a video showing a full tour of the store, confirming even more AI generated art and printed letters from the cast were all along the facility. The video would also confirm the claw machines still used card readers, confirming the ‘Game Tokens’ on the menu were a rename of the card points.

Opening & Google Reviews

Before the store had opened on November 7th, CEC set up a Google Maps page for the business, including a few new photos and a 5-star review from Juan Garza, Manager of Game Operations at CEC Entertainment. Members of the animatronics community would catch wind of the pre-opening reviews and would begin to detail their criticism of Adventure World’s use of AI and other misgivings with CEC. Just before the store opened the reviews now averaged to 2.3 stars.^[24] The store would then open at 3pm.^[21] By 7pm a video would be posted showing more of the large play structure, all the way to the top floor, alongside more signage, the full menu, and brochures linking to a waiver page on CEC’s website.^[24]

By noon of the next day, 27 reviews had been left, mostly negative, and dropping the stars to 1.4. During this the CEC Head of PR & Crisis Comms, Alejandra Arango, would submit a 5 star review to boost the numbers. With comments on Justin Lee’s original video about Adventure World criticising the use of AI art, he would be the first employee of CEC to begin commenting on the use directly.

“I’m interested to know what you think would make the art better?”

“Before AI where did inspiration or ideas come from?”

“Amazed by the hate on this post. Hope all the haters are able to process through the negative experiences in your past that cause this much hate. Because it’s clearly not an issue with AI and it’s rooting from something much deeper.”

“Feel free to design a piece of wall decor and send it in. Only use the thoughts in your head, pen/pencil, paper.”

2 hours after this post the comments would be deleted after being spread across the community. The next day the entire video would be deleted.

By the evening, a flood of 5-star reviews would begin appearing on the Google Maps page. The stars would jump from 1.3 to 2.2. At one point each was a minute apart from the previous. In the span of half an hour the reviews had went from around 30 to 50. Each were users who had never reviewed before, didn’t have a profile picture, and just left a single sentence review. Some of the longer reviews however were more CEC corporate employees jumping in. A user with the last name Garza, likely related to the previous Juan Garzza, was spotted. Another named just ‘Allison’ was likely the Manager of Corporate Communications at CEC. Garth Easterwood would be the Regional Tech for CEC’s Texas area. Christopher Poon would be the Pricing Manager of CEC Entertainment.^[24]

By 8pm Google would begin hiding reviews, mostly from the negative side. These would be arbitrary and without obvious intent, with a range of posts short to long. None of the intentionally jokey bad reviews were removed, such as one from ‘Hank Hill’ seeing George Bush at the location, or one that left an AI chatbot prompt to write a negative response in. The ratings would climb all the way up to 3.0 stars by the end of the night. At 2am, the entire page would be wiped of all reviews. Adventure World’s account would also fill the Q&A section with basic questions, which hid any user questions from appearing first.