Location 1

Fredbear's Family Diner

Disclaimer: Everything on the pages that follow is my personal adaptation of the story behind the Five Nights at Freddy's series, based on information collected from all the games and the book. It is not however fact or an official story confirmed by creator Scott Cawthon.

Our journey through the story of what actually happened through the duration of the Five Nights at Freddy's series starts at a location that we are yet to see in a game, and while its uncertain whether we will ever see what actually happened at Fredbear's Family Diner, we are able to put together a rough idea of what happened and when thanks to the ever evolving story in the mini games and the book 'Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes'. That being said, information about the Diner does seam to be very limited, it's mentioned in the games only a hand full of times and even then none of that information was useful until we were given more perspective from the book.

So how can I have a clear idea of what happened right? Well the truth is, I can't, the best I can do is work with the information we've all been given and make a lot of educated guesses... That being said there is evidence to back up most of what you're about to read, the beginning of every story is one of the most important parts, so here's the beginning of mine...

So let's get a couple of the big questions out the way, where exactly is Fredbear's Family Diner on the map, and when does our story begin? Well thanks to the book we actually have confirmation of where quite a large chunk of the whole story happens, including Fredbear's, as well as a complete date confirmation. With that in mind I can tell you with complete confidence that Fredbears's is located in New Harmony, Utah, USA, with our story beginning on October 31st 1982.

Extracts from 'Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes'

Welcome to Hurricane, Utah.

Charlie smiled wryly at the sign, and kept driving.

She hummed it, just six notes.

“We’re back in harmony,” she sang.

“And they’d, you know, harmonize,” she added, embarrassed by her parents even now. John’s expression was blank for a moment as the words at first seemed meaningless, but then his eyes lit with promise.

“Charlie, there’s a town north of here called New Harmony

"Sammy,” Charlie said. “We should have started with Sammy. We moved to the new house when I was three; it’s got to be 1982.”

“My mother,” Charlie said. “She was dressed up as a princess. It was a Halloween party. John, go to November 1.

” The headline was small, but it was on the front page of the paper on Monday, November 1: TODDLER SNATCHED

So now for the part that, quite frankly, still remains a mystery... What actually happened? Well the story of Fredbear's Family Diner isn't quite clear, and it's tough to put together an accurate story with the information that has been given from both the games and the books. As I stated on the beginning page for this story, I'm not using the book to reference any main events, due to Scott Cawthon clearly stating that the stories between the book and the games are not going to fit together completely and the book should not be used to solve any big events. We are here, in reality, to solve the story of the games series. With that in mind, the only actual information given about the events at Fredbear's does come from the book. So what does that mean for the story of the games? Well not a lot, to be honest, we know one thing for sure, and that's that this is where the first murder took place. A lot of people are under this impression that this is depicted in the game by the Take Cake mini game in Five Nights at Freddy's 2, but the first thing I'm going to officially theorise is that the image below is not taking place in Fredbear's Family Diner, but in a Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Why? Well lets take a closer look at the image.....

One of the main reasons people assumed this was Fredbear's and not Freddy's was because of the size of the building the crying children and Freddy animatronic are in. The Diner would be a smaller building than the restaurant so it makes sense that this would be Fredbears's right? Wrong... At this point all the mini games all consist of contained arenas like this, so that evidence on its own is not enough. Another reason and probably the most obvious one, was the fact that the murderer kills the child outside the building, meaning this murder happened before he developed his suit wearing signature move, making this his first murder, but again, I think this is wrong (y'all will have to wait for the Sister Location update for the reason why though!). The final reason and actually the most important reason to me, because It's what I'm using to prove my theory, and that's the fact that Freddy is

holding a cupcake... now for a lot of people that means that this scene exists before a time that Chica exists as the cupcake would eventually become her signature item, and while I don't think that's completely incorrect, I don't think its completely correct either. As I will explain in a later theory, Chica may not be present just yet but that doesn't mean this isn't a Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. So to get to the point of where this fits in with my theory, It's a small but significant detail that seams to have been overlooked, and that's the fact that the Freddy shown in this mini game is BROWN.... So what, right? They could have had a brown Freddy at Fredbear's, right? But they didn't, in fact brown Freddy wasn't introduced into Freddy Fazbear's until an accident caused the old suits to be discontinued, and by old suits, I mean the spring lock suits. We know the spring lock suits continued there journey into Freddy Fazbear's, and that's fact, check out this message phone guy leaves us in Night 2 of Five Nights at Freddy's 3...

"Uh, hello! Hello, hello! Uh, welcome to your new career as a performer/entertainer for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Uh, these tapes will provide you with much needed information on how to handle/climb into/climb out of mascot costumes. Right now, we have two specially designed suits that double as both animatronics and suits."

So, this tell us, definitively, that the spring lock suits made it into Freddy Fazbear's after there life at Fredbear's, and while Chica may not exist yet in the time this particular child murder happened, this is, to me, a Freddy's Fazbear's Pizzeria. So what does that mean for the story of what actually happened at Fredbear's? The only other time its mentioned in the games series is during the Night 5 phone call in Five Nights at Freddy's 2...

"Uh, we're going to try to contact the original restaurant owner. Uh, I think the name of the place was..."Fredbear's Family Diner" or something like that. It's been closed for years though, I doubt we'll be able to track anybody down."

This basically rules us out for using the game as any kind of way to figure out what happened at Fredbear's right? Well this is where the book comes in, and like I said before, I am only using the book for small details, hence why I'm not using the story of what happened at Fredbear's from the book in this theory. But thanks to the book, I have been able to identify, what I think, happened at Fredbear's, and here's the kicker, its something that for the last year, the whole community of theorist around Five Nights at Freddy's has been looking at from the wrong angle purely because they haven't read the book, and its something we've seen in theories over and over again, so yes, it does appear in a game, quite prominently as well, are you ready?...I think, that the crying child story from Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is actually taking place in Fredbear's Family Diner, NOT Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Now before you click off this website and accuse me of throwing everything anyone's every said about this particular game, please give me a chance to tell you why, because believe me, I would not be putting this out there on the internet to be seen without good reason... Take a look at the image below and allow me to throw evidence at you from every direction possible as to why I believe this true...

Now we are going to be referencing the book from here on out in pretty hefty chunks, and while I stand by that none of the main plot from it will be revealed as I will not be using it for this theoretical story we are embarking on, there will be spoilers of some of the more finer details... you have been warned!

First off lets clarify what the image above actually is... is a put together frame my frame shot of the whole of the restaurant/diner that is available for us to explore at different points in the Five Nights at Freddy's 4 game. Next, what can we see building wise... we can see the entrance screen which is the furthest point to the right, this screen also has a door to a costume cupboard and one of the tables. Next we have the middle screen, consisting of two tables and shadows of the two animatronics, Golden Bonnie and Fredbear (Golden Freddy). The final screen to the left (not paying attention to all the child head biting that's happening right there...) consists of the show stage and the animatronics themselves. Now that's all we see of this particular location, and put together like this makes it look like the perfect shape for a diner. American diner's traditionally have a significantly larger length than width, and with each screen put together we see an image where the length of the location becomes extremely relevant. A lot of people think that this is a version of Freddy Fazbear's before the spring lock suits were discontinued, and they're right to, right? After all I did quite openly say that the spring lock suits made it to at least one Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, on top of that there's no denying the similarities between this map and the map for the first Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, but in paying attention to what is similar, they have completely missed the things that make the two maps so different from each other, so here's that same image again, in comparison to the map of the first location of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria....

Like I said, there's no denying the similarities, between the two location's, they are obviously there... but take a closer look... the more you look the more differences you will see, but in case you cant see them, let me tell you what they are.

First off note the building outlines, Fredbear's outline stretches the whole length of the building, showing no difference in room, it looks like one whole space, Freddy's however has clearly indicated borders between rooms and not only that, but its very clear that there is another room to the left of the stage indicated by the opening on the left in the image. I can confirm that there are two more rooms, another dining area and a spare parts room. So if they are the same building, why is the left of the building from Five Night's at Freddy's 4 bordered off after the stage when there is clearly no other room borders? Also note the shadows, if you are able to see the shadows that clearly of something, then you are not in a separate room from that thing. The shadows in this image are being cast directly onto the wall next to the stage, indicating that the previous screen is not a separate room.

Next take a look at the safe room from the Freddy's location, yes its in the same place as the room we see in the Five Nights at Freddy's 4 location but look closer as the differences between how that's been mapped out compared to the rest of the location map for Freddy's. Its a darker shade of blue, why? Well we hear Phone guy tell us why over and over again throughout the whole games series whenever this location is in question...

Night 3 Five Nights at Freddy's 3

"Every location is built with one extra room that is not included in the digital map layout programmed in the animatronics or the security cameras. This room is hidden to customers, invisible to animatronics, and is always off-camera."

Night 5 Five Nights at Freddy's 3

"under no circumstance should a customer ever be taken into this room and out of the main show area"

Very clearly Phone Guy is saying that these rooms are not to be see by customers, they are in fact hidden from customers completely as well as cameras and animatronics. The darker blue the safe room is indicated in is harder to see against the background representing the fact it is invisible to people who don't know its there. So then why when we see it in Five Nights at Freddy's 4, is it an exceptionally bright red door that is visible to anyone who looks in that general direction? This is not one of the safe rooms Phone Guy is talking about, it is simply a costume room available for all to see, so much so that our crying child is able to see into it at one point as someone is getting into their suit ready to go on stage.

Now for the book references like I said before these are not plot spoiling references but they will spoil the smaller details of the story. The following references come from the point in the book where main Characters Charlie and John actually go back to Fredbear's Family Diner...

“Fredbear’s Family Diner” in red script. Charlie gave a gentle smile. Of course this is it. I’m home.

There was a double door to their right with circular windows. Unlike the dining area, which was breached with sunlight and the sounds of the outside, the room behind the double doors was still pitch black.

Charlie left him to his curiosity and walked further into the dining room, which she only knew as the dining room through memory. Now
it was a vacant and lonely room, stretching long and narrow: at least fifty feet, growing darker as it went. There was a slightly elevated stage at the end of the room,

When Charlie looked at the stage, she could still see two animatronic animals in shadow, moving in unnatural twists and turns.

She hesitated before going further, as though the ghosts she remembered might linger on the stage.

As she stepped inside, she pushed the door open all the way, trying to let in as much light as possible. As she walked further in, she let her hand drag along the wall. Although nothing was there now, she could feel heavy cloth, coats and sweaters hanging. No. These were costumes.

So lets take the most important parts of each of these references and see what they mean in the world of the games. First off we are confirming that we are in fact in Fredbear's Family Diner, nice and simple. Next we focus on the double door to the right statement, which is accurate to the location of the red double doors in the image, also the fact that its dark, in the image its very clear that this room is kept dark. Next we see an actual description of the diner that is a match for what we see in the image, a lonely room stretching long and narrow with a slightly elevated stage at the end of the room. Next is an exact copy of what I said about the shadows previously, when Charlie looked at the stage she could see the shadows of two animatronics exactly like we see in the image. She then described them as ghosts which fits in with the ghostly description of the shadow animatronics in the games. Finally we get told what was kept in the room to the right, costumes, where people would get changed into there costumes before going on stage, exactly what we see happening in the image.

So that's all pretty compelling evidence right? And I'm not even done yet! We still have some pretty major stuff to go through so if you need a break I recommend taking one now!... Ready to get back into it? let's do it...

So we know where Fredbear's is in the world of the games now, but what actually happened? While the story of what happened at Fredbear's in the book is not something we're going to use for the most part, I do still think a child went missing in 1982, which is when the missing child incident happened in the book, but I do not think this is was closed down Fredbear's, which is what happened in the book. So a child was taken, but there was no evidence to link directly to it being the fault Fredbear's Family Diner, despite that the original owners sell the Diner to a parent company because of their personal connection to the childs disappearance. This was referenced in part by Phone Guy in the previously discussed quote, stating there were 'original owners' of Fredbear's which leads me to think that at some point Fredbear's had new owners. With that in mind the diner stayed open for business for the next year which brings us to the events of Five Nights at Freddy's in 1983. At this point Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria has opened it's first restaurant in the next town down which is substantially bigger in size, this place is Hurricane in Utah which is where the majority of the book is set. Freddy Fazbear's and Fredbear's are both under ownership of parent company Fazbear Entertainment, making Freddy's and Fredbear's sister locations to each other. This is a critical realisation and because of the Phone Guy message on Night 4 or Five Nights at Freddy's 3 I gained a new confidence that this theory is a lot more feasible than people will originally think...

Uh, there's been a slight change of company policy concerning use of the suits. Um, don't. After learning of an unfortunate incident at the sister location, involving multiple and simultaneous spring lock failures, the company has deemed the suits temporarily unfit for employees.

Until replacements arrive, you'll be expected to wear the temporary costumes provided to you.

So why is that so important? Because it means that the original spring lock incident that caused the spring lock suits to be discontinued did NOT happen at a Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Sister locations are ultimately separated businesses that are connected together by the one parent company that owned all the separate businesses. One of the best examples of this is in the real world is parent company Yum Brands owning separate companies KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, which are all sister locations to each other. For those of you who have ever visited more than one of these separate restaurant businesses, I'm sure you'll have noticed the similarities with the restaurant layouts, this is due to Yum Brands having a restaurant standard that all their separate businesses have to comply to. This is why the layout of Fredbear's and Freddy's is so similar, with Fredbear's being an established restaurant it would make sense that Fazbear Entertainment took that layout as there restaurant standard and built the layout of Freddy's in a similar way to create there 'layout brand', so no matter if you're at Fredbear's or Freddy's, you know they're owned by the same company.

So with the corporate structure jargon out the way, in short, we know the incident that caused the spring lock animatronics to be discontinued did not happen at a Freddy Fazbear's but at Fredbear's Family Diner, and where do we see an incident involving, quote, 'multiple and simultaneous spring lock failures'? How about our poor crying child from Five Nights at Freddy's 4 who gets his head forcibly stuffed into the mouth of Fredbear only to have the spring locks fail due to the moisture of his tears?

So what happens next? Well there's no more evidence to back up what I think comes next but based on what's happened so far I feel like I can make an educated guess...

With Fredbear's now under investigation for the second time with a direct link to a child's death this time round, Fazbear Entertainment closes the diner for good, probably grateful that they named themselves after their new and at the time murder free business Freddy Fazbear's. As we know, the spring lock suits get discontinued throughout all of Fazbear Entertainment's businesses, including Freddy Fazbear's. Temporary costumes are provided until replacements were shipped out and thus the birth of our good friends Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy.

The decision to go with these four as the new, squeaky clean faces of Freddy's Fazbear's made easy because of the fact they already existed in a TV show and as toys/teddy's, so when they arrived at Freddy's ready to go, they were already familiar faces to their customers.

So that's it! That's what I think happened at Fredbear's Family Diner and this is what I think happened to kick of the chain of events that would lead to multiple child murders, haunted animatronics and burning down buildings. As you guys can see everything I've said is backed up with some pretty hefty evidence, but I want to hear what you think! leave your comments on the start of my story below, if you have a theory of your own, head on over to the theorist community tab and let us know what it is for your chance to be featured as my theorist of the week! This is just the beginning of my story and we continue onto our first official Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria in the next location! There's a lot more to go through yet, so be sure to head on over to the next locations page to find out what happened next!

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