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Historical Flashback

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Eat’n Park’s very first restaurant on Saw Mill Run Boulevard in Overbrook in 1949.

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Eat’n Park’s servers around the 1950s, when the restaurant was a carhop.

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Winnie, one of Eat’n Park’s original servers in the carhop days of the 1950s.

When the original Eat’n Park restaurant opened on Saw Mill Run Boulevard in 1949, it caused a traffic jam on Route 51. At the beginning, the restaurant was a carhop, with peppy servers bringing food and drinks to patrons’ vehicles. While Eat’n Park has been a Pittsburgh institution since its inception, serving up classic, home-style meals and that oh-so-delicious soup and salad bar, the ubiquitous Smiley Cookie wasn’t a staple until 1986. Hard to believe, isn’t it?