Chucky E Cheese
Chucky E Cheese now has gluten free pizza for birthday parties.
This past weekend we had a couple of birthday parties and one of them was at Chucky E Cheese in Natick, Massachusetts. Going to kids birthday parties can be challenging since she has to eat gluten free. I checked out Chuck E Cheese website and was happy to see that they had a gluten free pizza. I wasn't sure that it would be available for birthday parties, so I brought along a slice of pizza and a cupcake from Whole Foods. (More on the Whole Foods experience later)
When we got to Chucky E Cheese, I informed the birthday boys family of my daughter needs and she informed the waitress that was assigned to them. They said there would be no problems getting the gluten free pizza.
After playing around for a while, it was time to eat. The waitress brought out the pizzas and then served my daughter an individual size pizza in an oven cooked bag. They could have taken the bag off in the kitchen but it was nice that Chucky E Cheese take extra care to prevent any cross contamination. It's something that we haven't seen in any place before. This is what the gluten free pizza looked like out of the bag.
The pizza was slightly burnt but my daughter loved it. She had her usual slice and was too excited to eat anymore, she just wanted to play.
When it came to eating cake, there was no gluten free option presented. After the birthday boy blew out the candles on the cake, my daughter wasn't given any gluten free option. I had to run back to the car and get the cupcake that I brought. I was nervous because Chucky E Cheese specifically said no outside food on their website. When I came back inside, the host at the door didn't say anything and simply welcome me back in.
Tip for Chucky E Cheese: In the future if someone orders a gluten free cake that its safe to assume that they will need a gluten free cake will be needed.
We had a lot of fun at Chucky E Cheese and it's nice to see that they now have gluten free options.
Whole Foods Follow-up
The night before we visited Whole Foods in Framingham to get some gluten free cupcakes. Apparently the store in Framingham only has them in the freezer section, they didn't have any 'fresh' gluten free cupcakes in the bakery section.
My daughter and I went to the frozen aisle to get the cupcake. Once we got it, she wanted to play with the price scanner nearby. She scanned the cupcake and I looked over to the shelf and notice that the price on the shelf was lower than the scanned price.
Instantly my previous grocery experience kicked in and I knew that because of the prince discrepancy the cupcakes would be free. That's the law in Massachusetts.
So I picked up one more thing and went the register. When the cashier scanned in the cup cake, I calmly pointed out to the cashier that the shelf price was 7.99 not the 9.99 scan price. The bagger, who I believe was the assistant night manager, went back and checked and confirm the price difference. The cashier then voided my cupcakes and I only had to pay for the one only thing.
I noticed that the assistant manager had pulled off the shelf tag so that no one else would encounter this price difference.
The moral of this story is that it doesn't hurt to once and a while use the aisle store scanners. You may discover somethings are not priced correctly and will be aware when you get to the register. Most people won't look at the price at the register, or take action and the store is counting on that.