Former Strip Club Goes Kiddie -- Chuck E. Cheese Will Be Taking Up Quarters At Papagayo's

BELLEVUE - A few months ago, naked women were writhing on the stage and selling private dances at Papagayo's.

Early next year, a larger-than-life mechanical mouse will be singing to children and their parents.

"I'll accept a mouse," Mayor Don Davidson said yesterday upon learning that a Chuck E. Cheese eatery will replace the strip club.

Frank Colacurcio Jr., best known for running some of the hottest strip clubs in the Northwest, has leased the nightclub space to a partnership that plans to turn it into a playland for kids. Like 330 other Chuck E. Cheeses, the restaurant will feature play equipment, a video arcade and "live" entertainment by mechanical musicians backed by a Disney-produced video.

"What a sense of humor God has!" said Kitty England, who helped organize daily picketing of Papagayo's after Colacurcio turned the nightclub into a nude-dance business last January.

"We think of this as an opportunity to do good and do well at the same time," said Tom Maginnis, president of Portland-based Seattle Entertainment Concepts, which will operate the Chuck E. Cheese franchise. He said the business will "fit like a glove" into a shopping district that includes such family-oriented businesses as Fred Meyer, Sears and Kmart.

The restaurant is expected to open around Feb. 1.

Colacurcio operated Papagayo's as a nude-dance club until four months ago, when Judge Carol Schapira of King County Superior Court upheld a tough city ordinance aimed at preventing sexual contact between strippers and customers. Colacurcio and other strip-club operators have appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court.