Billy Bob's Stage during the Christmas season in Blaine, MN
Circus Pizza was a Minnesota-based restaurant chain founded in 1988 with numerous locations in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. Locations consisted of Blaine, MN, Brooklyn Park, MN, Burnsville, MN, Edina, MN, Maplewood, MN, New Hope, MN, West St. Paul, MN, and Eau Claire, WI.[1] Almost every Circus Pizza location featured The Rock-afire Explosion alongside a clown mascot designated, Bumper the Clown. The Edina Circus Pizza location featured The New Rock-afire Explosion.
Late in Circus Pizza's run, brand new Chuck E. Cheese's stores started opening nearby. With Circus Pizza losing out to CEC, they removed the Rock-afire Explosion from some of their locations in favor of an interactive video wall. The video wall featured a new computer-generated character, known as Marty Monkey. Unfortunately, this attempt was short-lived, and Circus Pizza sold out to CEC Entertainment later in 1999.
The West St. Paul location was converted to Chuck E. Cheese after Circus pizza was acquired by CEC Entertainment in August 1999. [2] The West St. Paul location recently closed perpetually, albeit it had featured a Studio C Alpha stage.
The Edina and Blaine locations were also converted into Chuck E. Cheese's.
All locations, except Edina and Eau Claire, were former ShowBiz Pizza Place restaurants that were franchised and dissented against Concept Unification by choosing to leave corporate and remain loyal to Creative Engineering. All locations either closed, relocated, or remained open and removed their 3-stage Rock-afire Explosion or new Rock-afire Explosion and replaced it with a brand new Studio C Alpha after they were bought out.