Pittsburgh classic
The story
Eat'n Park opened on June 5, 1949, as a little yellow building with 13 seats on Saw Mill Run Boulevard, Route 51, and 10 carhops running trays out to the cars. Founder Larry Hatch, an executive at Isaly's, simply flipped "park 'n eat" around for the name. It was the area's first carhop drive in, and opening day backed up traffic so badly that the place closed six hours later to regroup.
The strawberry pie was perfected in 1954 by the founder's daughter. The Smiley Cookie came along in 1986, thanks to Jim Broadhurst. As a kid he spent a nickel on a smiling cookie at Warner's Bakery in Titusville, and he never forgot it. Eat'n Park handed them out to kids for free.
Seventy plus years later, a booth, a slice of strawberry pie and a Smiley on the way out is still how a lot of Pittsburgh ends a night.