{"id":2264772,"date":"2026-02-03T14:56:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2264772"},"modified":"2026-02-03T14:56:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:56:49","slug":"scott-drake-named-ceo-of-chuck-e-cheese-owner-cec-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/scott-drake-named-ceo-of-chuck-e-cheese-owner-cec-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Drake named CEO of Chuck E. Cheese owner CEC Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Scott Drake, new CEC Entertainment CEO. | Photo courtesy of CEC Entertainment. <\/p>\n<p>CEC Entertainment, the owner of the food-and-games chains Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza, on Tuesday named Scott Drake the company\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n<p>He will replace David McKillips, who is stepping down effective Feb. 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Drake joined CEC last year as chief financial officer. He had previously held senior leadership roles at Farmer Brothers Coffee, GameStop and 7-Eleven.<\/p>\n<p>He takes over for McKillips, who took the helm at CEC in 2020 and guided the company through the pandemic and its aftermath.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>System sales at Chuck E. Cheese declined 11% since 2019, according to data from Restaurant Business sister company Technomic. But the company in recent years has expanded into new formats and concept types, including indoor playgrounds.<\/p>\n<p>CEC recently completed a systemwide remodel program and has launched various brand extensions, including the Chuck E. Cheese Adventure World concept, an indoor playground. The company plans to add more of those types of locations and wants to build more resort-based Chuck\u2019s Arcades.<\/p>\n<p>CEC praised Drake for strengthening CEC\u2019s balance sheet since his arrival and for refinancing its capital structure. \u201cToday, the company is in an enviable position among its competitors,\u201d CEC Board Chairman Joshua Acheatel said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCEC is operating from a position of strength as we move forward in 2026 and we are prepared to accelerate our expansion domestically and internationally, with brand extensions and diversified revenue streams,\u201d Drake said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Chuck E. Cheese operated 563 locations as of the end of 2024, according to Technomic. Peter Piper operates another 95 locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.restaurantbusinessonline.com\/membership\/?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=RBO-content&amp;utm_campaign=membership\">Sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<section class=\"section author-byline\">\n<div class=\"author-container\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.restaurantbusinessonline.com\/profile\/jonathan-maze\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"profile-content-container\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRestaurant Business Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Maze is a longtime industry journalist who writes about restaurant finance, mergers and acquisitions and the economy, with a particular focus on quick-service restaurants.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.restaurantbusinessonline.com\/profile\/jonathan-maze\" class=\"btn btn-primary text-uppercase\">View All Articles by This Author<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n\t\t\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n\t\t\t{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n\t\t\t\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n\t\t\t\tif(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n\t\t\t\tn.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n\t\t\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\t\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n\t\t\t\t\t'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\t\tfbq('init', '1028050688466912');\n\t\t\tfbq('track', 'PageView');\n\t\t<\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.restaurantbusinessonline.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scott Drake, new CEC Entertainment CEO. | Photo courtesy of CEC Entertainment. CEC Entertainment, the owner of the food-and-games chains Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza, on Tuesday named Scott Drake the company\u2019s CEO. He will replace David McKillips, who is stepping down effective Feb. 13.\u00a0 Drake joined CEC last year as chief financial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2264773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[438633,411682,21738],"class_list":["post-2264772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-executive-change","tag-management","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Scott-Drake-named-CEO-of-Chuck-E-Cheese-owner-CEC.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264774,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264772\/revisions\/2264774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2264773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}