eat face

Eat'n Park

Eat'n Park is a restaurant chain with locations in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia. The franchise began in Pittsburgh's South Hills in 1949, with the business model that customers could drive their car and park at the restaurant, while being waited on by waitresses on rollerskates.

Today, the franchise has nearly 100 locations, and has become an indoor-dining family restaurant with some locations open 24 hours a day.

The franchise's mascot is "Smiley", a walking smiley face, and Eat'n Park is well-known for its trademark Smiley Cookies, which are frosted sugar cookies with smiley faces drawn on them in icing. Seasonal Smiley Cookies are constantly produced, including fish at Easter, black and gold footballs and baseballs to represent the local sports teams, and various other holiday related items.

Eat'n Park restaurants are owned by the Eat'n Park Hospitality Group, a private firm. In the early 21st Century, Eat'n Park's headquarters relocated from Robinson Township to Homestead in The Waterfront shopping and entertainment complex. Due to its huge popularity in urban Pittsburgh, the company has enjoyed many years of profit increases, and they are investing this money in a future expansion into neighboring states.

Smoking ban

On June 1, 2007, Eat'n Park announced all of its restaurants would go smoke-free. The chain conducted a two-month study of five restaurants and found that customers preferred the change. The decision was made, in part, to Allegheny County's attempts at a county-wide smoking ban, as well as the success of restaurants in Ohio, which passed a statewide smoking ban in December, 2006. .

Competition

Eat'n Park competes with Kings Family Restaurants, another local restaurant chain; Denny's and Bob Evans.

Big Boy Sandwich

Eat'n Park started as a Bob's Big Boy regional franchisee using the Big Boy icon signage and serving a double-burger sandwich, the Big Boy. Eat'n Park's burger used a different sauce -- similar to tartar sauce -- from the chain's standard. The affiliation was terminated in 1976.

The sandwich is now the Superburger -- "Two chargrilled 6 oz. seasoned Black Angus burger patties with melted cheese, pickle slices, shredded lettuce, and Sauce Supreme on a double-decker sesame seed bun."