You Have To See The World's First Cheetos Museum

Snack fans, you've got a brand-new pilgrimage to take. Thankfully, this one doesn't involve faraway places and desert sojourns.

Inside Ripley's Believe it Or Not in New York City, Cheetos has opened up the world's very first Cheetos Museum, giving cheeseheads and Chester Cheetah devotees a place to check out some unique Cheetos and Cheeto-themed exhibits.

Food & Wine reports that the Cheetos Museum don't only contain the crunchy, cheesy snacks — part of it is actually covered in them (a hall with 128,900 individual Cheetos, if anyone's counting). That's right, the walls of the entire exhibit got the Cheetos treatment, so that the Cheeto sculptures have the perfect backdrop (not to mention every single selfie taken at the museum).

Within the exhibit, visitors can take in Cheetos that resemble everyday objects. Kimberly Scott, a director of communications for Cheetos, told Food & Wine that the idea came from fans. She says that Cheetos HQ gets bombarded with photos from consumers saying that they've found a Cheeto that looks like this or that.

"The truth is, the whole program was inspired by the fact that people would send us pictures of shapes, or put them online, or even try to sell them," she told Food & Wine. "We started to think, 'Hey, that's really fun,' so we created this program last year. And we just knew it was a huge hit. We had over 100,000 shapes submitted!"

In the spirit of interaction and fan submissions, the museum is holding a contest asking for even more Cheetos. If anyone has a particularly special Cheeto, they can submit a photo at www.cheetomuseum.com or through Instagram and Twitter with the hashtags #CheetosMuseum and #Contest.

SF Gate reports that each week, one Flamin' Hot and one original Cheeto submission will win, with the lucky photographer getting a cool $5,000. At the end of the summer, the number-one Flamin' Hot Cheeto will face off against the top OG option for a grand prize of $50,000. The winning Cheeto also gets a place in Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium and a feature in an upcoming Ripley's tome.

"Really, any Cheetos shape in any bag can be a masterpiece," Scott said.

All it takes is a closer look. The Cheetos Museum is open through the end of summer.