about us

On June 5, 1949, Eat'n Park began with a revolutionary concept. Led by Larry Hatch, an executive of the Isaly Company of that era, a group of Pittsburghers built a tiny, two-tone yellow, 13-seat restaurant in Pittsburgh's suburban South Hills and, at 2:00 p.m., sent 10 bustling carhops out to serve customers right in their cars. And what a revolution it was. The restaurant was so busy that it caused an enormous traffic jam on Saw Mill Run Boulevard and had to close to regroup a scant six hours after it opened. But the votes were in and the die was cast. Eat'n Park, one of the area's first carhop restaurants, was a smash hit.

Bill Moore, grandson of our founder, Larry Hatch:

“I take great pride in my family’s history with Eat'n Park, but one of the greatest contributions my family has given Eat'n Park is the Strawberry Pie. My mother came up with the recipe in our kitchen at home. My father, Bob Moore, tested many types of strawberry glazes that were, in his words, "god-awful." He came home and asked my mom, Claire, if she could do better, and boy, did she ever! She made several pies and submitted them to our neighbors in Scott Township. When the comments came back - “too sweet,” “too tart,” etc., Mom hung in there to perfect the recipe. After quite a few rounds and many taste tests later, the neighbors finally all agreed that she had produced a delicious pie. I guess our guests agree, too. It’s become a favorite of so many people.

A little known fact about our Strawberry Pie is that Eat'n Park was one of the first places ever to receive fresh strawberries (or any other produce for that matter) by air freight. In 1962, Eat'n Park served fresh Strawberry Pie throughout the winter, with strawberries shipped from Plant City, Florida. At the time, this was unheard of.”

Though we’d continue to offer carhop service for another 16 years, this marked the beginning of Eat’n Park as you know us today.

Our carhop days will always have a special place in our hearts, but dine-in service was the way of our future. 

We love kids! Our kids’ menu was our first step into our evolution into the family-friendly restaurant that our guests now know and love.

This tradition continues at many of our locations, where we’re happy to serve both night owls and early risers.

Like everything else at Eat’n Park, our famous Soup & Salad Bar has evolved over the years, and now includes not only our fresh salad toppings, delectable soups, and fresh-baked breads, but also incorporates hand-cut fruit and locally-sourced vegetables in season.

Now known as our Caring for Kids campaign, this fundraiser continues to this day.  To date, we’ve raised over $10 million companywide for local children’s hospitals.

How did this classic commercial come to be? In 1982, Eat’n Park was just beginning to blossom into the family restaurant chain that you’re now familiar with, and the company was prospering. Our CEO at the time, Jim Broadhurst, wanted to create a holiday card on video to thank the city of Pittsburgh for their support of Eat’n Park.

An ageless favorite was born.  The idea of the relationship between the tree and the star illustrates a timeless holiday lesson – by helping another, you’re helping yourself, and you’re making the world a better place.

To this day, we bake our pies, breads, cookies, and more in-house.  But it wasn’t for another year that our most famous bakery product – the Smiley Cookie – came into existence.

Smiley got his start as a humble cookie in our first bakery in 1986, but he soon realized his destiny as the official icon of Eat’n Park, the Place for Smiles.  Now, millions of Smiley Cookies are enjoyed by our guests every year, and Smiley himself spreads the love at more than 250 community events annually.  And that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Our commitment to offering healthy options for our guests started more than 20 years ago.  Today, the Eat’n Smart designation on our menu indicates items that have a lower caloric and fat content, for guests who watching what they eat

It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s a hot air balloon in the shape of a Smiley Cookie! Flying the friendly skies took on a whole new meaning  when we launched our Smiley Cookie hot air balloon. 

The introduction of our FarmSource program in 2002 pioneered the creation of the infrastructure needed to get local products into the hands of our suppliers and onto the plates of our guests. Through FarmSource, we work with more than 200 local farmers and producers, all within a 250-mile radius of our units. In fact, we have been recognized by the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) for our ongoing support of local agriculture through FarmSource. This program greatly reduces the distance food travels from harvest to table. This decreases air pollution, water pollution, traffic congestion and the need for oil.

Because of FarmSource, our guests enjoy fresh, wholesome foods, including:

• Produce that is selected through farmer-based organizations
• Dairy products that come from independently owned and operated local farm families that choose not to treat their herds with rBGH/rBST
• Meat that is produced at USDA-inspected facilities, which source their animals from farms that are within the region and ensure high standards of animal care, well-being and nutrition
• Products from local artisans who devote their time, energy and passion to a limited line of products and emphasize high quality and unique flavors

Our first Cookie Cruiser was an antique 1974 DIVCO Milk truck - because what goes better with cookies than milk?  The Cookie Cruiser and its operators, Team Smiley, would visit local neighborhood events with a sweet treat for all those in attendance.

While we have since retired the original Cookie Cruiser and introduced a new one, the program has only expanded since its inception.  Team Smiley and the Cookie Cruiser give out more than 120,000 Smiley Cookies annually and will visit over 200 events.

To meet the demand from Pittsburgh ex-patriots living across the country, we began making our signature Smiley Cookies available online for shipment to displaced Eat’n Park fans. 

On September 11, 2008, smoke-free restaurant legislation went into effect.   However, more than a year before that, on May 31, 2007, we decided to make all of our restaurants smoke-free voluntarily. It wasn’t an easy decision at the time. We knew that many of our guests would love the change, but we also knew that some of our guests who smoke would be disappointed by our decision. We’re in the hospitality business. Trying to make everyone happy is what we do. It’s in our blood! This would be a choice where we would have to make some people happy and others not.

The group that was most important to us in this decision was our team members. The Eat’n Park experience is delivered every day by our more than 8,000 team members. The evidence is pretty clear that working in an environment with second-hand smoke is not good for your health. When the state of PA (Ohio had already gone smoke-free in December 2006) delayed its smoke-free legislation, we felt we couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to ask our team members to work in an environment that we knew to be hazardous to their health.

We have received tremendous positive feedback and support for our decision, and we have never regretted it.

Eat’n Park takeout reaches all the way back to our roots.  With the addition of our first pickup window, we made it even more convenient for our busy guests to pick up a made-to-order meal on their way home.  The response to this new feature was outstanding, and we’ve since added pickup windows to many additional locations.

SmileyCookie.com makes it easy for you to share a smile with anyone, anywhere, for any occasion. You can even order customized cookies to match wedding colors, sport teams, and more, and have your Smiley Cookies delivered fresh nearly anywhere to as many addresses as you choose! Though they travel cross-country, all of our cookies are still baked fresh and hand-iced in our bakery in Pittsburgh, PA.

Designed to reduce energy consumption and overall impact on the environment, LEED-certified buildings often have unique (and sometimes not-so-obvious) features that contribute to the structure’s energy efficiency. The Waterworks Eat’n Park is no exception. It's packed, inside and out, with features that reduce our environmental impact. Some, like the 40-foot wind turbine that will generate some of the restaurant’s power, will be obvious as soon as you pull into the parking lot. Others, like our induction stovetops, aren’t visible to most visitors.

Presented by The National Restaurant Association, Eat’n Park Hospitality Group was awarded the 2011 Restaurant Neighbor Award. The award celebrates outstanding service efforts that restaurateurs perform in their respective communities. We were selected because our team members have poured their hearts into Caring for Kids, our campaign to raise money for local children’s hospitals. Through 2010, the campaign has raised over $7 million for sick children and their families.

In 1982, Jim Broadhurst, then-CEO and now Chairman of Eat'n Park Restaurants, wanted to create a video to thank the City of Pittsburgh for its support. That desire gave birth to the Eat'n Park Christmas Star, delivering a message that has been uplifting spirits ever since. The Eat'n Park Christmas Star has earned its classic status among western Pennsylvanians as a beloved holiday tradition.

As part of the Christmas Star's 30th anniversary celebration, we created a special laser adaptation of our commercial, delivered “Random Acts Of Smiley” throughout the city, unveiled the Christmas Star Shoppe in all of our restaurants, featuring Christmas Star merchandise ranging from ornaments and t-shirts to magnets and mugs, and partnered with the City of Pittsburgh to proclaim November 9 as 'Eat'n Park Christmas Star Day' in the city.

SendtheStar.com was also launched to enable visitors to spread holiday cheer by sending the Christmas Star video with a personal message to any recipient with an email address.

It’s important that our buildings stay as current as our menus, which is why we annually make a considerable investment into revitalizing our locations. At our Banksville location, we were able to build a completely new restaurant, right next to the old one! The new building features a spacious lobby and bakery, private dining room, a pick up window, and a bigger parking lot! Talk about a new building full of smiles!

Jim Broadhurst, Chairman of Eat'n Park Hospitality Group, won the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association (IFMA) Gold Plate Award, one of the food service industry's most prestigious honors!

The award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated leadership, achievement and innovation; have made lasting contributions to the foodservice industry, and have shown civic pride through voluntary involvement in community activities. Congratulations, Jim!

Available for iPhone and Android, the Eat'n Park Mobile App allows you to receive and redeem coupon offers from your mobile phone, unlock secret deals using Smiley Code Words, find the nearest Eat'n Park location, view our menus, order takeout, and more. Now that's something to smile about!

Since the start of our Caring for Kids Campaign in 1979, our wonderful team members, guests, and partners have helped us to raise over $10,000,000 for local children’s hospitals. That’s a lot of smiles! #10MillionSmiles

Giving back to our community is in our DNA. On April 29, we held our first ever Day of Smiles, an event that gathered nearly 100 of our team members to volunteer at 10 different community service projects throughout the city.

As a company, we invest at least 5% of our pre-tax earnings to support nonprofit organizations – and though we support a wide variety of causes, we focus our efforts on three areas: Sharing Smiles, Growing Smiles, and Hero Smiles.

With the introduction of online ordering, we took our takeout experience to the next level. Saved payment information, favorite orders, and easy customization make Eat’n Park takeout quick, easy, and delicious.  

At Eat’n Park, one of our primary areas of philanthropic focus is enhancing the lives of military veterans and their families. As part of this commitment, we sponsored Parker, a service dog who will be matched with a veteran after her training!

Parker is a 4-month old rescue dog and is being trained through Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs. Parker’s training will take 24 months, as she learns to mitigate the effects of conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, seizure disorders and mobility issues.