Chuck E Cheese

Friends and Family,
Over the past 5 years I have taken my kids to Chuck E Cheese in Bloomington-Normal probably 20 times. Each time I make a special pizza for John and bring it with because of his food allergies. (I buy food for the rest of us there.) Nobody at Chuck E Cheese has ever questioned me about this until today.
We went to Chuck E Cheese this morning. As we began eating lunch with our friends, the manager (she's actually the assistant manager, but told us she was the store manager) came over and told me that John could not eat his pizza because there was no outside food allowed in Chuck E Cheese. When I told her that John had multiple food allergies and that he could not eat the Chuck E Cheese pizza, she told me they have a salad bar and John could eat vegetables from the salad bar while everyone else eats pizza. When I explained how unfair this would be to eat plain vegetables while your friends eat pizza, she said I should take John out to my car and have him eat his lunch in the car because of their zero tolerance policy for bringing in food. At this point several other moms started joining in (complete strangers who overheard us and came over to support John :) ) and telling her to just let him eat his pizza, and this woman would not budge, she kept saying over and over again that it was their corporate policy to not allow any outside food for any reason. She said to me, I am not going to break a company policy and risk my job because of you. So I asked her, what kind of compromise can we come to here? She said, well I can box your pizza up for you so you can leave. She wouldn't even give me a "warning" and let John finish his pizza today, and not bring it again in the future. Poor John didn't want to leave his friends, so he didn't eat any lunch and had his pizza on the way home. The worst part was, all of this transpired in front of John, who clearly heard this woman ask us to leave because of his food allergies.
I am furious not only about their discriminatory policy against people with food allergies, but also about the rude and insensitive way we were treated by the assistant manager. She was not understanding or supportive in any way and needs some serious training and education about special needs and food allergies. I am very surprised that someone working around children does not have more knowledge about how to accomodate special needs families.
I hope I am not being too bold by asking anyone who feels up to it, to please call the following number and ask for an exception to the zero-tolerance outside food policy for kids with food allergies. I also want the staff at the Bloomington-Normal Chuck E Cheese to receive education and training about special needs and food allergies so this won't happen to anyone else.

Chuck E Cheese Guest Relations
Please ask for "Brittney"
1-888-778-7193

The assistant manager's name was Becky Woith.

Please pass this on to anyone you know who is affected by food allergies or who would be willing to make a phone call in support of John.