Tropical Storm Ian destroys Port Orange Chuck E. Cheese restaurant; other Pavilion stores reopen

PORT ORANGE — Tropical Storm Ian claimed the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant at The Pavilion at Port Orange as one of its casualties on Thursday.

The rest of the shopping center at 5501 S. Williamson Blvd. in Port Orange, however, remained relatively intact.

"The Pavilion is mostly fine," confirmed Kristina Circelli, a spokeswoman for both the 400,000-square-foot Port Orange shopping center as well as for Volusia Mall in Daytona Beach, on Friday. "Retailers are starting to reopen today (Friday). There is some debris and minor damage, but not too bad.

"Chuck E. Cheese was the outlier and unfortunately sustained major damage to their building due to a collapsed roof."

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Photos as well as a video posted on Facebook by several area residents show extensive damage to the inside of the standalone restaurant at 5539 S. Williamson Blvd.

The News-Journal was unable to reach a spokesperson for the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Port Orange for comment.

'Roof is completely caved in'

Tracy Tiangco, a Port Orange resident who lives in the Summer Trees community just a short distance south of The Pavilion, posted a video on Facebook that she shot of the interior of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.

"I shot the video (Thursday) at 4:54 p.m.," she said. She and her friend Donna Deleno walked over after the tropical storm subsided to check out how the shopping center fared.

"You can't tell unless you go to that side of the building," Tiangco said, referring to the side of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant facing Williamson. "The whole roof is completely caved in. We called 911 to tell the fire department that you can smell gas. God forbid that it explodes. You can smell the propane bad."

As for the rest of The Pavilion, Tiangco said, "There was nothing else damaged other than Chuck E. Cheese. Nothing else was mangled, not even light poles or awnings or branches."

Tiangco noted that the side of the building that collapsed is next to a big retention pond.

Port Orange resident Kevin Ventura commented on Facebook that he was unaware that the Port Orange Chuck E. Cheese was damaged looking at it from the Copperline Coffee + Cafe shop across the parking lot from it.

"From a distance, you couldn't really tell," he told The News-Journal.

Dorothy Hopper, the general manager and co-owner of Copperline Coffee, also said she didn't notice the damage to the nearby restaurant when she drove in to work Friday morning. She said the damage is noticeable on the side of the building facing Williamson, but not so much on the side that faces her coffeehouse.

"Oh my god, poor Chuck E. Cheese over there," she said when contacted by phone on Friday afternoon.

Hopper said she didn't realize the kid-friendly pizza restaurant/arcade game venue has damaged until a customer showed her a video that a local resident shot of the inside as viewed from one of the windows of the Chuck E. Cheese building. "It's only visible from the Williamson side, not from Copperline at all."

As for the Port Orange Copperline location, Hopper said, "We have no damage, thank goodness. We never lost power either. We lost a few ceiling tiles, but that's it."

Hopper said there was a longer-than-normal line of customers when the Port Orange Copperline opened its doors at 10 a.m. The delay for the coffeehouse which normally opens at 7 a.m. was because of the longer time it took for Hopper and Copperline's founder Nick West to drive there. Hopper lives in Daytona Beach while West lives in New Smyrna Beach.

Hopper said several customers told her they were especially glad to see Copperline open because they needed to use its WiFi service to communicate with relatives to let them know they were safe. "We ran out of biscuits, croissants and banana bread, all the comfort food items on our menu," she said.

A steady stream of customers, onlookers and the curious paraded by Chuck E. Cheese, on Friday taking photos and reminiscing about their connections with the kid-friendly business before returning to their vehicles and slowly driving off.

“I was blown away. Nothing else around it was affected. It was surreal to see the whole exterior wall collapsed,” said Ben Leftwich, of Port Orange. “We were there the day before and our children were playing games and now it’s destroyed.”

A younger customer was troubled by the sturdiness of the structure.

“I’m really concerned, like how did they build it,” said Isaiah Lopez, 11, who was inspecting the building with him mom. “Did they do a good job or a bad job? Because it looks like a bad job, obviously.”

Another local resident showed up with her granddaughter to inspect the building.

“It’s really sad, honestly, for a lot of the kids in the area,” said Tracy Lembke. “I know a lot come here and we used to bring our grandchildren here. It will be a loss.”

News-Journal correspondent Tammie Shanahan contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Ian destroys Port Orange Chuck E. Cheese; other Pavilion stores reopen