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In Shane Dawson’s Conspiracies Part 2 YouTube video, he talks about a crazy theory that Chuck E. Cheese’s recycles pizza by taking slices that weren’t eaten and combining them into “new” pizzas. Chuck E. Cheese’s has said this doesn’t happen, but people online are still wondering why pizza slices often don’t seem to line up at all. One explanation offered by customers is that perhaps, since the restaurant sometimes sells by the slice, they combine freshly made slices from different pizzas into one pizza. Others say that the pizzas come out misshapen because of the type of pizza cutter they use. Read on for more details about the conspiracy theory, photos of misshapen pizza, and explanations and theories.
Shane Dawson Ordered Pizza Slices That Didn’t Line Up
Here’s Dawson’s video:
And some photos of the pizza he ordered to test the theory:
Shane Dawson
Shane Dawson
Shane Dawson
It does indeed seem like some of the pieces just don’t line up well. He pointed out that the pepperonis that are cut don’t have their “other halves” on the pizza either. He said his experience reminded him of rumors he heard as a kid that Chuck E. Cheese’s used leftover pieces and combined them into new pieces. But the restaurant and employees have both said this isn’t the case.
Employees Say the Pizzas Are Cut with a Heavy Slicer & Then Slid Back Onto the Tray, Making the Pieces Misshapen
Chuck E. Cheese’s made a statement that the claims were false, Fox News reported.
The claims made in this video about Chuck E. Cheese’s and our pizza are unequivocally false. No conspiracies here — our pizzas are made to order and we prepare our dough fresh in restaurant, which means that they’re not always perfectly uniform in shape, but always delicious.”
An employee of Chuck E. Cheese’s addressed the conspiracy on Reddit, speaking just for their own store. Redditor u/Karou86 suggested that the discrepancies were because of a heavy slicer that makes the pizza slices different sizes. “It’s when the pizza is being slid off of the cutting board and onto the tray where it gets kind of wonky looking, because some slices are still staying together, while others are sliding all over the place.” Here’s their full comment from Reddit:
All the slices are from the same pizza, it’s just when the pizza comes out of the oven, they place it on a cutting board in order to slice it. The slicer is very large and kind of heavy, so some ppl have a lot of difficulty trying to cut the pizza perfectly. Thats why some slices are different sizes then others. After the pizza is done being cut, the cook slides it onto a tray to carry out to the guests. It’s when the pizza is being slid off of the cutting board and onto the tray where it gets kind of wonky looking, because some slices are still staying together, while others are sliding all over the place. Usually, we’ll try to fix it so it’s all together and looking decent, but on the weekends when it’s packed and the kitchen is super backed up, we’re just trying to run the food as quickly as possible, resulting in pizzas that don’t look as good.
I’ve never seen them try to mush different pizza parts together into a full pizza before. However, I can only speak for my store, so there might be a ratchet Chuckee Cheese out there that might try to pull this, but I don’t think anyone would be able to keep on pulling something like that for years without getting caught/getting too many complaints. Corporate is very strict and is constantly checking and pushing us to upsell everything, so if a store starts to dip in reviews/ratings/sales the district manager of the region will come in and investigate. Also they have a ton of cameras everywhere in the which they do a bunch of random audits on, so it would be really hard to do something like that.”
Not everyone thought this was a good explanation and said this didn’t explain the pieces not fitting together. But others argued that employees are only paid minimum wage, so there’s no way they would all be keeping the secret. Karou86 offered this additional explanation:
My other guess is that this is one of the stores that train managers for other stores. These MITs have a month where they have to learn everything, before they get shipped off to their store. They spend a week of this time in the kitchen, learning how to make dough and properly cook pizzas. Obviously if they never cooked before, they tend to fuck up a lot. At my store, any f***ed up pizzas are thrown out or given to the hounds (the workers), we won’t serve it to the guests, we’ll just remake it. But it might be that it was too busy or they just didn’t care enough to remake a pizza that turned out looking crusty.”
So the explanation is that the pizza is cut with a heavy slicer on a cutting board and then slid back onto the tray, causing the slices to get weird and misshapen.
Other employees have also spoken up.
@shanedawson
A FRIEND OF MINE , BUT THEN AGAIN THIS IS JUST O N E CHUCK E CHEESE.
WERE WATCHING U CHUCKY CHEESE 👀
#shaneconspiracies
In a separate Reddit thread, another employee said that they couldn’t explain why the pizzas looked odd in some of the videos. Here’s what they wrote:
Whenever the cooks take the pizza out, set it on a cutting board and use a pizza rocker to cut it. Then they pick up the board and slide the pizza onto the serving trays. It doesn’t always go smooth. Sometimes the whole pizza will land and shift, other times one half will slide will the other sticks a little, so the pizzas are often not circular. I will admit a few pizzas in the vid looked wrong, and I don’t know why.”
Redditor emmabeelr said that she works at a different pizza restaurant and the explanation didn’t make sense to her. She wrote: “I make pizzas where i work and even when the cuts are weird or we slide the pizza off the cutting board you can push it back in place and it should all still line up each cut to the other side if that makes sense but who knows thats just my experience!” [sic]
One Redditor came up with a different theory; u/xsullengirlx wrote:
Is it possible that some Chuck E Cheese locations cook a bunch of pizzas in bulk at once, then slice them all when they come out, and keep them in piles sorted by different toppings under heat lamps, and then just pull however many pieces they need off of each pile? I know they let you order by the slice, instead of just whole pizzas, so maybe it is faster to pre-cook fresh pizzas and cut them in advance, and serve by the slice. They could still technically say they make them fresh, that way.”
Other Chuck E. Cheese’s Customers Are Sharing Their Photos of Misshapen Pizzas
This may be one of those conspiracy theories that don’t go away. A lot of customers are sharing photos of their own misshapen pizzas, and some have commented that this is the “real Pizzagate.” Here are some photos. The first is from u/BrianaCollins.
She wrote: “One pizza was hot the other seemed like it was microwaved.. and there was half a pepperoni slice in the crease and it wasn’t on the other slice…”
@shanedawson was watching your video and I remembered I had this picture of my pizza from Chuck E. Cheese. Just look at it.
But still, employees and Chuck E. Cheese’s itself have all said there is nothing to this theory. One employee wrote on Reddit: “I can’t speak for other locations, but I work at a CEC that prioritizes guests over everything. We always make the pizza fresh. If it gets messed up, apologize and make a new one for free. In the training for the kitchen, they’re always reminded “If it’s not a 10, make it again.”
Another employee wrote, “I can attest that at the location I worked at we never did anything like that. I have delivered pizzas that looked weird though. Most times it was because they messed up cutting it and weren’t paid enough to care. Idk about larger more busy locations though.”
However you view this theory, it’s definitely increased interest in Chuck E. Cheese’s.
Google Trends for Chuck E. Cheese over the past week 😂
What do you think?