Is Your Child Safe at Chuck E Cheese's?

Last weekend our family celebrated our granddaughter, Elizabeth's, 3rd birthday at Chuck E Cheese's. She had looked forward to her party for months. On party day, she wore a new plaid skirt, soft sweater, tights, and her favorite black boots. Her blonde hair, clipped back, accentuated her dancing blue eyes and a smile that never left her face. My husband and I thought she'd pop with joy!

The party was great fun. Her little sister, cousins and adult members of the family played games, rode rides, and ate pizza. Elizabeth loved it all. She spent the most time climbing up the sky tube with her 4-year old cousin and giggling all the way back down. She opened lots of presents and blew out all 3 candles on her cake--twice!

The festivities seemed perfect until the next day, when 10 out of 12 people from our party developed severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting that lasted all night and well into the next morning. Nausea lasted a couple more days.

A son-in-law and I were the only 2 spared. What did we have in common? I couldn't eat anything at Chuck E Cheese's because of allergies. He arrived late and ordered a Buffalo Chicken pizza. Neither of us ate pepperoni pizza.

I called the Health Department on Monday and made a report. The next day I called the manager at Chuck E Cheese's. I told her about my family and inquired about the company's food safety standards. She said her workers are very careful when handling food and that every ingredient is frozen when put on the pizza. She also said that the health department inspected, due to my report, and found no violations. I didn't dispute what she said, but reminded her that something happened to make my family so sick. She said it must've been the stomach virus that's currently going around town.

I considered that possibility. It's unlikely that 10 people would all get a stomach virus at exactly the same time. I asked her, anyway, about how often the rides and games are sanitized.

"We clean everything at night but the sky tubes," she said. "The sky tubes are cleaned once a week." She also said that it's not their fault if kids bring germs into the store after a cleaning. She showed no concern for my family.

One of my daughters had to see a doctor, because she thought her symptoms were more severe than the usual stomach virus. Her blood work revealed a bacterial infection. The doctor said she couldn't say for certain that the bacteria are the result of food poisoning, but said they very well could be. The doctor prescribed antibiotics for her.

We wondered if other food or drink could've been contaminated. Elizabeth's mother bought the birthday cake from a local supermarket. I couldn't eat any cake, but my son-in-law did. Since he had no symptoms, we concluded that it wasn't the cake. Could it have been the drinks? Everyone drank drinks from the same machine, but everyone didn't get sick.

Our guess is that the pepperoni pizza is the culprit. If so, what might have happened to the pizza before it arrived at our table? Was it left out and re-heated? Did it come in contact with toxins? Did someone sneeze all over it? We'll never know.

Even if it wasn't the pizza, the numbers of children playing on the same equipment guarantees that contagious germs stand ready to make kids sick. An unnamed source told me that her pediatrician says Chuck E Cheese's keeps him in business. He advises parents to keep their kids out of there. Kids can contract strep throat, nasty viruses, and who knows what else while having fun at Chuck E Cheese's.

Elizabeth, both parents, and her 17-month-old sister are better, as is the rest of the family. I'm thankful kids are so resilient. Once recovered, no matter what they go through, they pop back and remember the fun. Elizabeth loved her birthday. That hasn't changed. Our adult perceptions have changed. We won't go back. We never imagined that Elizabeth would have to recover from her Chuck E Cheese's party before riding her new Big Wheel and playing with her new toys.