ShowBiz Pizza Place was located at 3221 Ambassador Caffery Pkwy.

Showbiz Pizza was a huge part of my childhood, as my father would work security there. So, like...me and Billy Bob was BOYZ!


I actually learned something that I hadn't known before when researching for this post. ShowBiz didn't go out of business at all, as I had thought. It was actually the company that owned Chuck E. Cheese that filed for bankruptcy, and the company that owned ShowBiz bought their assets.


The ShowBiz Pizza Place in Lafayette was located where the current Hooters of Lafayette operates.

I'm sure if you ever went to ShowBiz, you remember their mascot, Billy Bob, an overall-wearing hillybilly bear. And OF COURSE you remember his band, The Rock-afire Explosion!


The Rock-afire Explosion went on to have it's own documentary in 2008 with it's creator, Aaron Fetcher.


ShowBiz Pizza Place took the rising popularity of arcade games, and put it together with great food, and entertainment, with their slogan being "Where Everyone Can Be A Kid." 

They had everything from rides for young children, a ball pit, arcade games, The Rock-afire Explosion's show, pizza, and Billy Bob would come out every now and again to greet the kids.


The short story is that when Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1984, it's assets were purchased by ShowBiz. Both restaurants continued to operate as separate entities. Richard M. Frank joined the company as president in 1985, and started to make changes to the overall functioning of ShowBiz.

When ShowBiz finally broke away from CEI, the company that created The Rock-afire Explosion, the decision was made to remove all ShowBiz animatronics from the restaurants, and replace them with Chuck E. Cheese characters.This started the process of changing all ShowBiz locations into Chuck E. Cheese restaurants.

The conversion to Chuck E. Cheese from ShowBiz was complete in 1992.


Chuck E. Cheese operated in the same building in Lafayette for awhile before moving to their current location down the road at 3555 Ambassador Caffery Pkwy.

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