This is the page discussing our old Pizzeria! Said pizzeria had three separate openings (and subsequent closures). None of the three iterations lasted very long, but they are an integral part of ABI History.
Basic History:
For your viewing convenience, we have broken down the three separate eras in more detail on their own pages (as well as having an additional page where you can find all the pictures that will be used on said three pages). However, the main goal of the pizzeria, at least back in 1985, was to compete with Chuck E. Cheese's and Showbiz. After shutting down not even a year after launch, this first iteration was deemed a failure. The second attempt occurred in 1996, this time with the added focus of promoting various ABI games and other assets. This one lasted even less time. Iteration three, the most current one, lasted the longest, before unforseen circumstances made it shut down. Nowadays, we have no plans to make a new pizzeria whatsoever. Below are the links to various pages. You are welcome to look at any of the pages out of order, or you can look at the pages based on the order in which the three different iterations of the pizzeria existed.
1985:
Note: The image above, and any images shown below, were generated with the Dall-E Mini/Craiyon AI program, please credit the creators of said program if you use these images for anything.
Although the pizzeria opened in 1985, the story for it actually begins a year or two prior, and involves a company that only just bought out ABI not long before or even during the time the pizzeria was open. They were the kind of company that wanted to make money from everything they could (obviously without being deemed a monopoly and broken up). They had been eying the fast food and food entertainment business for a while, ever since Chuck E. Cheese's and Showbiz arrived on the scene. They had also been looking to expand into the computer software and gaming business, and they saw a then-flailing Antique Bandit Interactive as their gateway into that kind of business. As such, they bought us out. As a bonus, they also got our radio station, which was the only aspect of the company making any profit, hence why they kept it around even to today. However, while they were dealing with the acquisition of ABI, they had also started working on laying the foundations, literally and figuratively for a place that would become Derrick's Pizzeria and Diner. Having studied the competition closely, our new parent company established the elements they believed they needed to succeed: 1. A family atmosphere. This meant making it entertaining for both adults and children; 2. Decent food for a decent price. This seemed less of a priorty, however, as the competitors seemed to make their money back on the various arcade machines and performances, and the ticket to admission; 3. A cast of cute, colorful animatronic suits, who would double as mascots for the company, or one of them would at least.
Getting the characters down was the hardest part. The company had done a lot of market research, but came up with nothing conclusive; according to their surveys and other studies, kids liked animals, fictional or real. They also liked spacemen and policemen and knights and a whole bunch of other stuff. It was tempting to made a whole bunch of characters, just to please everyone, but that was costly, and would also cause problems with defining the brand. As such, the amount of main animatronic suits was narrowed down to seven. Even this amount was seen as quite a few, especially for a place that was just opening. As you might expect, the process to making the seven suits wasn't entirely smooth. The company in charge of everything was a very secretive company when it came to discussing anything about themselves, but what was known is that they used the most advanced robotic technology and AI technology available. Yes, we said AI technology. That was actually used to generate the various suits, some prototypes of which can be seen below (note that some of the prototypes were downright freaky after being made, but we've selected only the best looking ones. If you wish to see all the images, check the Photos page linked below).
As you might have noticed, that was a lot of prototypes we showed you, and that's far from all of them. Plus, we're talking about 1985 technology. It has never been made clear how or where our parent company got such advanced resources, or a whole bunch of money from, just to make a lot of suits. Regardless, the process worked. After a while, the suits got better and better as the company's idea of what seven animatronics it wanted to use became much clearer. Of course, if you like any of the prototype images shown here, and want to give some of the more unique ones names, feel free to share those names with us on our Tumblr or through other means of communication. We'd love to hear about them! Anyway, below are some better prototypes, ones that definitely capture the cuteness that the company was aiming for originally.
Eventually, we got the finalized suits that were used in the pizzeria.
From left to right, the animatronics are (in order): Derrick the Dragon (The Leader), Betty the Bat (The Loner), Warren the Wolf (The Tough Guy), Andrew the Axolotl (The Cute One), Sammy the Sea Dragon (The Fish Out of Water), Kyle Norbin the Knight (The Honorable Goofball) and Patty Penny the Police Officer (The Protector). However, not long after the pizzeria opened, it became clear that the animatronic's personalities did not fit their titles. Then again, this had been semi-clear even before the pizzeria opened. Thanks to a lot of extensive research, we have discovered the designer's thoughts on the various animatronics from the creators themselves:
Derrick the Dragon:
"Hello, my name is Winslow, and I'm the person behind the Derrick the Dragon animatronic. One of the biggest challenges I faced when making the animatronic was trying to train the Ai we were using to filter out a lot of creepy material, and only use the cutest designs. That was an issue faced for a lot of the animatronics. I certainly feel bad for the guy who had to design Warren. He says he had nightmares for months before the suit was finalized. Anyway, I had it less rough compared to some of the others. The absolute biggest challenge was dealing with the personality for Derrick. I mean, he's supposed to be the leader of the group. He's supposed to have this air of leadership about him. But it's just . . . not like that. Warren's more of a leader than Derrick is. Derrick's kind of scared, of everything. There was also meant to be this dynamic between Derrick and Kyle, but that never happened, either. Regardless, I am still proud of the work I've done, and still very happy with how things turned out."
Betty the Bat:
"Hello, my name is Diana, and I'm the person behind the Betty the Bat animatronic. Betty was one of the easier animatronics to make. She didn't have anything too disturbing in terms of prototype suits. I think that from the beginning, I was envisioning a bat animatronic. I mean, you're in medieval times. What are you probably going to see quite a bit of? Bats! What? Just me? Well, thank goodness we weren't going for complete accuracy, ha ha! In terms of personality, Betty wasn't too difficult their either. I mean, she's a loner. She's always in her bat cave. Actually, the cave itself was probably the hardest bit for this process, even though I had no involvement with it. People who were at the restaurant kept thinking it was a very elaborate fake, but no, it was actually somewhat real. The people running the pizzeria had to lift a decent-sized rock from some mountain all the way to the location, just to make a real cave that was built into the restaurant itself. I'm sure Betty really appreciated that. Overall, this was quite the nice experience for me."
Warren the Wolf:
"Hello, my name is Dan, and I can't say I look upon my experience making Warren the Wolf very fondly. I swear that animatronic was just . . . cursed, at times. Each of us were allowed to choose an animatronic to make. Mine was simple enough: make a wolf animatronic suit with a bit of an edge to it. Easy enough, right? Wrong. First of all, the machines we were using to generate designs of these things (and for some inane reason, the company wanted us to make a physical prototype for each design the computers spat out, even when it was clear they wouldn't work) had a hard time making a cute animatronic suit. I mean, sure, the suits the other pizzeria chains used weren't anything too cute, but they also weren't nightmare enducing. At first, the computer I was using wouldn't even spit out designs for something that looked even remotely wolf-like. Some of them looked more squirrel or chipmunk-like, and still managed to look super creepy. Then it started to get a bit more accurate, at least in terms of making an animatronic that looked like a canine. Which would mean that the suits would start looking cuter, right? Wrong! Prototype 25: thrown in a closet. Reason: Brown fur and blood-covered teeth. Prototype 52: thrown in a closet. Reason: The suit nearly reached the ceiling of the pizzeria, didn't look very wolf-like, and it gave the employees nightmares. Prototype 89: thrown in a closet. Reason: blood-covered teeth. Eugh, those teeth, man. I wasn't the only one dealing with nightmare fuel in my designs, but I may have had it the worse of the seven. Eventually, I found a design that was fine. I still get nightmares thinking about some of those prototypes, though. Oh, and the cherry on top? The suit's right eye got scratched. There goes my perfectly-good work. Ah well."
Andrew the Axolotl:
"Hello, my name is Jenny, and I'm the designer behind the Andrew the Axolotl animatronic. I was actually not given a specific design to go for, just to make another sea-based animatronic. At first, I didn't know what kind of animatronic I wanted to make. I wanted to make something unique from all the others, using an animal that wasn't entirely in the public consciousness yet. That's due to me being an environmentalist. I knew how important our oceans were, and how in danger they were as well. If I was going to make a sea-based animatronic, it had to be one that was based on an animal people would want to protect, just to make keeping the oceans clean that much more important. Interestingly, the computer I was using had quite the advanced index of information. I'm talking a mass of information not seen until the internet really took off back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I searched through its various indexes for any inspiration, and came across the axolotl. I had already known about the axolotl, and even find it really interesting. However, it hadn't crossed my mind to make an animatronic based off an axolotl, until then. That was probably the biggest challenge for me. After getting down ideas for what kind of animatronic I wanted to make, everything else fell into place. I must say, I'm very happy with how it all turned out."
Sammy the Sea Dragon:
"Hello, my name is Jordan, and I'm the person who made the Sammy the Sea Dragon animatronic. I was told to make an animatronic similar to Derrick, except underwater themed. As such, the idea of making a sea serpent or sea dragon animatronic came fairly quickly. Getting the design down was a different matter entirely. Sammy wasn't as terrifying in his earlier designs as Derrick or Warren were it seems, but he was still quite hard to make at times. Like the others, the computer I used had a hard time getting the mouth down. The mouth was often quite scary at times, with some pink or red, sometimes flower-like lips. Besides that, though, things went fairly smoothly. My time working on Sammy the Sea Dragon was alright, I guess."
Kyle Nobrin the Knight:
"Hello, my name is Peter, and I worked on the Kyle Norbin the Knight animatronic. While I didn't face the same kind of challenges the others faced, I did still face some challenges. For one thing, I was told to make a knight that would carry a real sword. I have no clue why the company wanted me to do that (in fact, I'm pretty sure that kind of thing was illegal, or at least very unwise), but a job was a job at that time. Making the suit wasn't anything too hard, although the company did want the suit to be generally period-accurate. It was also notably taller than most of the other suits. I'm still not sure as to why. Regardless, my experience making the suit was fine. Nothing too special."
Patty Penny the Police Officer:
"Hello, my name is Henry, and I made the Patty Penny the Police Officer animatronic. That suit was a bit of a challenge. At first, the company wanted a suit that looked really realistic. Then they showed it off to some focus groups, mainly consisting of kids, and the kids found the suit terrifying. So I had to make the computer create a suit that was more sci-fi, which was something the company had hoped to do anyway, to tap into the popularity of space and science fiction and whatnot. Personally, I would have gone for a space sheriff or something like that, but apparently police officers were cool to kids. Even now, I'm not really proud of the suit, and think I could have done better if I wasn't rushing so much, but eh."
There were so many suit designs that our parent company had even thought about making toys and plushes based off of the animatronic mascots, but those plans fell through. Below are images of said prototypes, though.
From the start, the plan was to try and open sometime in 1985, May at the latest, in order to take advantage of the summer vacation window, in which the pizzeria would hopefully see a lot of business. Thankfully, there were no problems in hitting that window, although it did come down to the wire due to complications with getting the suits finished. Regardless, the pizzeria was finished and ready to be opened by May 8th. The first week of May 1985 was spent studying the animatronics, just to see how they would react. The company also increased the amount of advertising it did. Below are some various materials from around that time, plus pictures of the night guard, the inside of the pizzeria, and some employees, as well as images of the pizzeria once it officially opened.
One of those images is of a location map for future locations across the states. The idea was, after a year of normal service, if the pizzeria did well enough, the company would expand to other areas. For the most part it seemed to be doing quite well, until an incident occurred on Halloween morning, which shut down the pizzeria and shuttered any future plans for it. However, this was not the end of the pizzeria entirely. Further details about the pizzeria can be found on our admina YouTube channel, under the most recent videos.
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