> In 1981, Pizza Time Theatre went public; they lost $15 million in 1983. By early 1984, Bushnell's debts were insurmountable, resulting in the filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Pizza Time Theatre Inc. on March 28, 1984.
> It had been created by Bushnell, originally as a place where kids could go and eat pizza and play video games, which would therefore function as a distribution channel for Atari games.
Bushnell was frustrated that Atari only got money on the original sale of a coin-op machine, while the operators got continuous revenue from the machine. He figured Atari could get in on the operations game by running a restaurant.
Atari built/ran the first Chuck E Cheese and Atari engineers (and Atari think tank Cyan Engineering) designed the robots. Restaurant opening party was private for Atari staff.
The mascot was originally going to be called Rick Rat, until marketing suggested that associating a rat with the restaurant wasn't the best idea.
When Warner Communications bought out Atari, they didn't understand it or want it, so Bushnell bought it out from them and continued running it.
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/40425172/robots-pizza-and-magic-...
And these lessons are incorporated into business programs world wide and taught to each new generation so that they may permeate the business landscape and prevent unnecessary hardships.
This is why I advocate advanced degrees in business for folks looking to enter leadership positions.
If I am a solo founder and hire my first employee, that's 2x headcount growth.
Between 1970 and 1971, Walmart went from 38 to 51 stores, 1500 to 2300 employees [1].
Not quite 2x, but still, not exactly a "blaring warning" or "red flag" in hindsight.
https://one.walmart.com/content/walmartmuseum/en_us/timeline...
I guess Mickey Mouse is just an animatronic rat too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbI3zOm2BkE
Skip ahead to 7:20
They pulled in more revenue than the average McDonald's and 3x more than Pizza Hut.
It does seem like the concept has always struggled to be cost-efficient but I don't know that rapid growth was a bad indicator on its own.
It's also probably worth keeping in mind that some of those restaurants may have been franchised. When a franchisor sells a franchise license to a local franchisee, the local franchisee bears most of the risk.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dicker
It's certainly not polite but people claiming it's lewd have about as much ground to stand on as they do with the word "pussycat"