Types of Children's 'Entertainment' Centers
It has been over 30+ years since Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre (now Chuck E. Cheese’s) and almost two decades since the first pay-for-play soft-contained-play centers, such as the former Discovery Zones, and the pay-for-play children’s entertainment centers, such as the former Jungle Jim’s Playhouse, first emerged.
There have been a lot of changes to the children’s entertainment center industry since then. As of early 2011, we have identified eight distinctive types of centers that cater to children eight years and younger and nine types of centers targeting children up to around age twelve or older. Many centers use combinations of elements from different centers.