these kids today

Chuck E. Cheese's

Chuck E. Cheese’s Testing Restaurants With No Animatronics

Children today: They still love video games, pizza, and music, but they aren’t as into animatronic animal bands as generations past. That’s why some locations of pizza and entertainment chain Chuck E. Cheese’s will experiment with taking the robots out and replacing them with humans in animal costumes. Not everything will change, though: Drunken brawls among adult guests are sure to continue. [More]

Minda Haas Kuhlmann

Yeah, You’re Going To Have To Pay For Your Kid’s Promposal, Too

We have either good or bad news for high school students and for their parents: promposals, or elaborate staged events where one teen asks another to the prom, aren’t going away, and have become as much an essential part of the prom-going experience as cummberbunds and corsages. Seeing how popular they are with teens, companies that sell or rent prom clothes have started marketing guides, promoting their brands but also reinforcing elaborate promposals as the norm. [More]

(Morton Fox)

Olive Garden Pursues Millennial Foodies With Tuscan Tapas

Traditionally, people have gone to Olive Garden when they feel like consuming theoretically infinite salad and breadsticks and miles of pasta. Portions are large enough to form at least two meals. Aren’t they? The chain is trying something new in some markets, and taking it nationwide: small plates for groups to share, instead of giant carb platters. [More]

(me and the sysop)

Young Adults Not Eager To Take On Piles Of Credit Card Debt For Some Reason

Everyone has that one relative who was an adult during the Great Depression and hid boxes of cash all over the house because they didn’t trust banks. Someday, your own descendants might share tales of weird old Aunt Mykayla, who entered the workforce during the Great Recession and refused to get credit cards or even buy a car. [More]

Spicy Chorizo with Duckface

Campbell’s Opens Pop-Up Hipster Soup Kitchens To Promote Soulless $3 Soup Pouches

Millennials, an age group roughly defined as “people who make the Consumerist editors feel old,” are a tough demographic to market to. How to reach them? “Free food” is usually a safe answer. That’s why Campbell’s is holding free soup events in big cities to promote their few products, $3 microwaveable soup pouches filled with the flavors foodies were crazy about in 2008. [More]