Oh NOOO! Chuck E. Cheese closed by the Health Dept.

Sorry to ruin everyone's lunch plans, but I just saw this on NoLandGrab:

Chuck E. Cheese's at Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Terminal Mall was closed by the Health Department yesterday. Here's the scoop from a Park Slope Parents posting:

At about 2, I went up to order lunch and they told me they were not serving food, though people who already had paid were still taking salad and soda. This seemed weird.

About a an hour later I went to check what was happening, and they pointed to their front windows. The Health Dept. had posted big ‘closed’ signs on the front, which said only that there was an ‘environmental hazard.’ They were not letting anyone new enter but those already inside could continue to spend their tokens.

About an hour later, they started closing the games down. No info on what was wrong.

Had to be rodents. At least they were up front about it.

Exhibit A: Why would you take your kid to Chuck E. Cheese's when there is any number of joints in your nabe. I will kiss anybody's ass and give them 2 hours to draw a crowd if Ratner's lil project doesn't have an Olive Garden.

The problem is most certainly rodents.
I mean the mascot is vermin. . .

Looked on the DOH website. It looks like the on the last inspection they received a score of 19 which is well above the average score of 13 for restaurants in the city. By comparison the other two franchises (Bronx and Queens) each scored 4. They don't say on the DOH site what the score is that will shut you down, but above 28 requires reinspection.

ETA: That place is like Foxwoods for kids, so closing it may not be such a bad thing...

Gothamist link:

http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/06/10/maybe_its_aprop.php