[10] Eat'n Park launched on June 5, 1949, when Hatch and Peters opened a 13-stall drive-in restaurant on Saw Mill Run Boulevard in the Overbrook neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

[12] After leaving Big Boy, the chain entered Ohio and West Virginia, and eventually grew to over 75 restaurants.

Eat'n Park expanded into Northeast Ohio including Greater Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown, and into West Virginia: first Morgantown, followed by Clarksburg and Wheeling.

[21] Eat'n Park filed several lawsuits against companies outside the restaurants' operating area to enforce its trademark[22] on the Smiley Cookie.

[29] The company's most successful concept is Hello Bistro, a fast casual chain focused on millennials offering gourmet burgers and salads while keeping its parent company ties to a minimum by offering prepackaged Smiley Cookies and the same brand of ranch dressing as the main Eat'n Park chain, but otherwise making no references to Eat'n Park.

With six locations, Eat'n Park plans to expand the Hello Bistro concept throughout the Pittsburgh metropolitan area and potentially into new markets.

Unlike the parent restaurants, The Porch offers a full bar menu including beer, wine and spirits.

[33] Released in 1982, in support of a charity at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, the commercial became so popular that Eat'n Park has re-aired the ad every year since, starting in late November.

The bakery, which serves as a training facility for disabled adults, was accused of infringing on Eat'n Park's Smiley Cookies.