Eat'n Park
"the place for smiles"
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| Private | |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Founded | June 6, 1949 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Founders | Larry Hatch William D. Peters |
| Headquarters | Homestead, Pennsylvania, United States |
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Number of locations
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69 stores (2017) |
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Area served
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Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia |
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Key people
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Jeff Broadhurst (President), Mercy Senchur (Senior VP of Operations) |
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Number of employees
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8,000+ (2011) |
| Parent | Eat'n Park Hospitality Group, Inc. |
| Website | www |
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Footnotes / references |
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Eat'n Park is a restaurant chain based in Homestead, Pennsylvania, with 69 locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The chain is known for its Smiley Cookies and has adopted the motto, "the place for smiles".
In the late 1940s Larry Hatch and Bill Peters were supervisors at Isaly's Restaurants in Pittsburgh. On a trip to Cincinnati, Hatch was impressed seeing the Frisch's Big Boy Drive In operation. He and Peters contacted Big Boy founder Bob Wian, reaching a 25-year agreement to operate Big Boy Restaurants in the Pittsburgh area, which would be called Eat'n Park.
Eat'n Park launched on June 5, 1949, when Hatch and Peters opened a 13-stall drive-in restaurant in the South Hills neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The official opening time for the restaurant on Saw Mill Run Boulevard was 2 p.m. Advertised as "Pittsburgh's First Modern Eat-in-your-Car Food Service" the original location was serviced by 10 carhops. Four months later, a second unit opened in Pittsburgh, by 1956: 11 units, 1960: 27 units, 1965: 30 units, and by 1973: 40 Eat'n Park locations. After leaving Big Boy, the chain entered Ohio and West Virginia, and eventually grew to over 75 restaurants. In 2017, there are 69 Eat'n Park restaurants operating.
In 1974 Eat'n Park allowed their 25-year Big Boy franchise agreement to expire. This was publicly attributed to discontinuation of car hop service—which ended in 1971—but it was largely motivated by the end of $1 per year licensing fee Eat'n Park enjoyed. As a result the Big Boy hamburger was renamed the Superburger. The non-renewal of the Big Boy agreement eventually allowed Eat'n Park to expand into areas licensed to other Big Boy franchises. Eat'n Park expanded into Northeast Ohio including Greater Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown, and into West Virginia: first Morgantown, followed by Clarksburg and Wheeling.
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