Eat'n Park is a restaurant chain based in Homestead, Pennsylvania, with 59 locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The chain is known for its Smiley Cookies and has adopted the motto, "the place for smiles". History 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 on Saw Mill Run Boulevard in the Overbrook neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Advertised as "Pittsburgh's First Modern Eat-in-your-Car Food Service" this 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. Eat'n Park's early success had a direct impact on what would become the signature dish at McDonald's. Jim Delligatti, the Pittsburgh-area franchisee for McDonald's and one of Ray Kroc's earliest franchisees, invented what eventually became the Big Mac in the kitchen of Delligatti's first McDonald's franchise, located on McKnight Road in suburban Ross Township before debuting at the McDonald's owned by Delligatti in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on April 22, 1967, selling for . It was designed to compete with the Big Boy hamburger Eat'n Park was offering at the time. In 1974, Eat'n Park allowed their 25-year Big Boy franchise agreement to expire. This was publicly attributed to discontinuation of car hop servicewhich ended in 1971but 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. (In 1977, Big Boy reassigned the Pittsburgh territory to Wheeling-based Elby's Big Boy. Sold to Elias Brothers Big Boy in 1986, the