An improved performance in the second quarter ended July 2 is reported by CEC Entertainment, the parent company of the well-known US chain Chuck E Cheese, but it was still a loss.
The loss was down from $9.1m in the second quarter of 2016 to $5.9m. The adjusted EBITDA was $40.3m compared with $41.7m. The company reported that sales were down 3.8 per cent for the Chuck E Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza venues.
In other news, the company reports that its PlayPass system is now installed in 95 per cent of its CEC venues and that two new Peter Piper Pizza venues and four new Chuck E Cheese franchises had opened in the quarter.
“While we are pleased that our cost efforts allowed us to preserve margins, we are disappointed with our revenue performance in the second quarter,” said Tom Leverton, chief executive officer. “We experienced traffic declines in walk-in business as well as booked birthday parties during the quarter. To address the issue, we have returned our advertising messaging to our successful 2016 themes which focused on our many improvements to the in-store experience.”
Revenues decreased $4.8m to $211.8m, driven by the 3.8 per cent decline in comparable venue sales. There are in all 610 Chuck E Cheese and 147 Peter Piper Pizza venues in 47 US states and 12 overseas countries.
