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Friday, January 27, 2012

Partner Spotlight of the Month: Girls on the Run

In 2010, Eat’n Park Hospitality Group made a commitment to our guests and neighbors through our LifeSmiles program. Over 5 years, we will invest $1 million and 20,000 volunteer hours to organizations and partnerships that impact the health and wellness of children and their families. By focusing on events and programs that get people up and moving or provide healthy eating options, we hope to make an impact in the communities we serve. Every month, we will highlight one of these partnerships here on our blog - and we hope you’ll want to get involved!

This month, we’d like to tell you a little about Girls on the Run.
In over 173 cities nationwide, Girls on the Run (GOTR) is a non-profit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running. The curriculum addresses all aspects of girls’ development – their physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being.


Over a 12 week period, each girl will work with her coach, a carefully selected female role-model from her community, to learn not only about her body through the running training, but to be educated and empowered to make the best decisions in all aspects of her life.

According to GOTR International, their mission is to “inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.”

As a part of our LifeSmiles initiative and commitment to children’s health and wellness, Eat’n Park has teamed up with the Girls on the Run programs in our neighborhoods. Not only through cookie donations on their final 5K race day, but to sponsor participants who otherwise may not have been able to register. We are dedicated to the health and vibrancy of kids, and believe that this program is changing lives everyday.

Eat’n Park is proud to be a sponsor of Girls on the Run; to help empower young girls to use their truly limitless potential.

Want to know more? Visit http://www.girlsontherun.org/ to find programs around you, become a volunteer, or sign-up for a 5K race!

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Friday, January 20, 2012

Coupon for $2 off breakfast at Eat'n Park!

Experts say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day - and we agree! That's why we have a little gift to help you ring in the new year: a coupon for $2 off your next breakfast.


Coupon expires February 12, 2012.

Check out our breakfast menu here.  Whether you prefer healthy, indulgent, or something in between, we've got you covered!

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Introducing The Porch at Schenley, Eat'n Park Hospitality Group's newest restaurant!

If you live in the Pittsburgh area, let us introduce you to the newest addition to the Eat’n Park family: The Porch at Schenley! Nestled in the heart of Oakland, The Porch at Schenley is a come-as-you-are neighborhood bistro serving simple, delicious, scratch-made food using local ingredients.

The Porch at Schenley, in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood

No, The Porch isn’t Eat’n Park (though you CAN expect the same great service!). Like our other restaurant concept, Six Penn Kitchen, The Porch is a restaurant all its own. Stone oven-baked pizzas with homemade dough, original salads, and mouthwatering meals from the rotisserie are stand-outs that set this new concept apart. To keep the selection fresh and local, the menu will be changing every six weeks.

The Porch offers Brunch, Lunch, and Dinner, as well as weekday breakfast from a convenient walk-up window – which makes it easy to “Pickup the Porch” if you’re on the go. If you’re visiting on a weekday evening, there are Happy Hour drink specials from 4:30-6:30, and all pizzas are half-off after 9:30 PM.

And if you’re looking for atmosphere, especially during warmer weather, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another restaurant that can compete with The Porch. Garage-style doors open the dining room up to a spacious porch (that’s right, The Porch has a porch!) that overlooks scenic Schenley Plaza. It’s the perfect spot to unwind on a warm evening, with a drink in your hand and friends new and old by your side.

The porch at The Porch! The garage-style doors on the left open into the dining room.

Following in the footsteps of our LEED-Gold Eat’n Park restaurant at the Waterworks, The Porch has many green construction components, like a green vegetated sedum roof over a 1/3 of the building and a rain barrel that collects water to be used to irrigate our rooftop garden, where veggies will be growing starting in early spring.
The Porch's "green" roof
Rain tower that will irrigate The Porch's rooftop garden

We’re excited about this new addition to Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, and we hope you’ll give The Porch a try next time you’re in the area.

Learn more at http://www.theporchatschenley.com/, or join The Porch’s email club today – it’s Smiley approved!

Visit The Porch at:
221 Schenley Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Click here for directions.

Connect with The Porch: On Facebook On Twitter
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Congratulations to Robin Brooks, the 2011 Eat'n Park Caring For Kids Car Raffle Winner!

Back in December, we visited Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to pick the winning ticket for the 2012 Ford Focus we were raffling off for our Caring for Kids Campaign. Yesterday, we got to present the winner, Robin Brooks, and her family with the car! What a great day!

Robin and her family are from Youngstown, OH and the 2012 Ford Focus is replacing the Brooks family’s minivan that has clocked more than 250,000 miles. Check out their new ride:


Pictured from left to right: Kristen Crusan – Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation, Trina DeMarco – Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, Ron Brooks, Robin Brooks, Joseph Thurby Jr. – Neighborhood Ford Store, and Josh Brooks.

We’d liked to extend a huge Smiley “thank you” to The Neighborhood Ford Store for once again donating a vehicle for our in-store raffle fundraiser. The 2012 Ford Focus raffle raised $140,000 for Eat’n Park’s Caring for Kids Campaign, which benefits local children's hospitals.

Our friends at KDKA also stopped by for the fun. You can check out their segment here.

Congratulations to Robin and her family!

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Friday, January 13, 2012

Our new kids’ menu: Helping families make healthier choices

Next time you’re visiting Eat’n Park with your kids, you may notice something different: our new kids’ menu! We’ve made some changes to help our youngest guests learn to make healthy choices when they’re dining with us.

You may recall that we launched our LifeSmiles initiative in 2010. LifeSmiles is our 5-year, $1 million commitment to supporting programs, organizations, and events that encourage families to live a healthy lifestyle. The changes we’ve made to our kids menu are directly in line with those goals. We want to make it easy for kids to put together a healthy meal while still enjoying their favorite foods, and we think our new menu design does just that!

We started by talking to our guests about what kind of information they wanted from the menu, and how we could best communicate that info to their kids. We also took stock of our existing menu choices, while figuring in the FDA’s recommended guidelines for active kids ages 3 -10.


The result: You’ll notice that the menu now resembles a game board with color-coded spaces. After all, healthy eating can be fun! Green spaces indicate healthier choices. For entrees, that means that they’re under 350 calories, and for sides, they’re under 125 calories. Together, a healthy entrée and side will come in under 500 calories – in other words, about a third of the day’s recommended intake.

We’ve also highlighted our delicious salad bar, which, by the way, is a great option for picky kids or those who just enjoy being able to select their own meal. It often surprises us how many fruits and veggies kids will eat when they get to put their own meal together! In addition, we added a new side - a bowl of grapes - and two new sandwiches that are kid-friendly and healthy to boot: A grilled chicken sandwich and a sliced turkey sandwich.

How does this help kids make healthier choices? In addition to having more options to choose from, kids can learn how to pair their favorites (think chicken fingers and pizza) with a healthier side (a bowl of fruit instead of French fries). All of our menu items are now pictured, so kids know exactly what they’re getting, and they’re empowered to make their own selections.

Finally, you’ll notice a reminder that kids have a choice at the end of their meal whether to enjoy an original Smiley Cookie, a Mini Smiley Cookie, or an apple.

It’s our hope that these changes will help empower kids and parents with choices that fit their lifestyle, which will hopefully lead to a lifetime of healthy choices.

View our kids menu here. 
See the nutritionals for all of kids' menu items here. 

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Friday, January 6, 2012

Eat'n Park Takeout Coupon - Sunday, January 8 only!

Exhausted from holiday cooking? Let us revive you! We'll do the cooking this Sunday so you can relax, watch football, take down the tree, or just do nothing all!

Use this coupon to take 20% off your takeout purchase, Sunday only.  And don't forget to pick up a dozen Smiley Cookies!


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