Find your Ispirazione Italiana

Sensory Sensitive Sundays

Sensory overload—loud noises, bright or flashing lights, crowded spaces and other stimuli—can be overwhelming for children with autism. And that describes a typical day at a Chuck E. Cheese fun center. But the chain has been partnering with the Center for Autism and Related Disorders to create a quieter, calmer dining and arcade experience for kids with autism and sensory needs. On the first Sunday of each month—dubbed Sensory Sensitive Sundays—select locations open two hours early, with dimmer lighting and lower volume. The goal is to create a calmer environment so that kids with sensory sensitivities can enjoy the Chuck E. Cheese experience to the fullest. For World Autism Month this April, the chain extended the program systemwide, holding a Sensory Sensitive Sunday event at all 460 U.S. and Canada locations, and raised money all month long for Autism Speaks, a nonprofit dedicated to creating a more inclusive world for all people with autism. “Our Sensory Sensitive Sunday program is the only one of its kind on a national scale and is just one of the many ways we deliver on our mission to make Chuck E. Cheese the place ‘where every kid can be a kid,’” David McKillips, CEO of CEC Entertainment, said.

RISE UP FOR A DEEP-DISH EMOJI

Why isn’t there an emoji for deep-dish pizza? Why does the only pizza emoji on your smartphone’s keyboard represent a New York slice? That’s what Marc Malnati, owner of Lou Malnati’s in Chicago, wants to know. In honor of National Deep Dish Pizza Day on April 5, his chain launched a nationwide petition to add a deep-dish emoji to keyboards everywhere. The company even designed two options for the emoji and invited supporters to vote online for their favorite at DeepDishEmoji.com, then sign the petition at Change.org. The petition will be presented to the Unicode Consortium, a group that maintains Unicode, an encoding standard for text data, and monitors emoji popularity. Lou Malnati’s will propose that the consortium add the winning design to the universal emoji keyboard. “America is more than one style of pizza, and Americans deserve more than just a New York slice to express themselves,” Marc Malnati said. “It’s time we give [deep-dish] fans their own icon and identity with a new emoji to express our deepest pizza-preciation.” The petition will be online for “several months,” the company said. If successful, Americans could see the deep-dish emoji on their digital keyboards before the end of the year.