Established by Larry Hatch in Pittsburgh in 1949, Eatn Park is a restaurant chain with locations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Hatch, an executive with the Isaly deli company, conceived Eatn Park as one of the first hamburger restaurants in the Pittsburgh area to be serviced by carhops. The restaurant name was a nod to the ubiquity of Park and Eat signs in the late 1940s. The phrase could not be trademarked, so Hatch decided to flip the expression and use Eatn Park. Today, the chain includes over seventy-five restaurants, eight thousand employees, and has spread east toward Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; west into Ohio; and south into West Virginia. The company celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1999 with an exhibit at the Senator John Heinz History Center titled Eatn Parks Anniversary: Celebrating 50 Years of Smiles.
From the description of Eat'n Park records 1956-1999 (bulk 1980-1999) [manuscript] (Historical Society of W Pennsylvania). WorldCat record id: 476842158
