Step aside,Oh Mi Snapchat: Wall Street's hottest new unicorn caters to an even younger user base and prefers animatronic rock-star rats to simpering puppy filters.
Reuters reports that Chuck E. Cheese's may be headed from the ball pit to the trading floor with a public offering that would value the chain at more than $1 billion.
SEE ALSO: The Chuck E. Cheese Challenge will make you nostalgic for ball pitsCiting anonymous sources, the news wire says the private equity firm that currently owns the arcade-pizza joint has been shopping it around to various banks in hopes of hitting the stock market later this year.
In a fitting coincidence for a brand built around raucous elementary school birthday parties, the news broke the same day the chain kicked off its 40th anniversary celebration.
Once the technicolor mecca of kid hedonism, the chain has been struggling to grow up for years as home video games lessened demand for Whack-a-Mole sessions and interest waned in its unique pairing of lackluster cheese pizza and guitar-toting rodents.
That's not to mention a seedy reputation as an inexplicable magnet for viral brawls and absurd crime that has seemed to give its mascot's grin a sinister tinge of madness.
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After a flurry of failed makeovers to its iconic rat -- Chuck has sported everything from cigars to skateboards -- the restaurant was forced to sell itself to its current owner, Apollo Global Management, for $950 million in 2014.
Since then, it has tried to reinvent itself in a classier Dave & Buster's mold, appealing to the parents it once seemed to delight in driving to medicine cabinets with alcohol service and more mature advertising.
It also recently traded its perpetually greasy tokens for more modern rewards cards, crashing a collector's market in the process.
Wall Street traders looking for the hottest tech should note that the chain also boasts a distinguished Silicon Valley pedigree; it was conceived in 1977 by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, who famously rejected an offer to buy a third of early-stage Apple for $50,000.
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