Eat'n Park planning Erie restaurant. (Pennsylvania) (company profile)

Eat'n Park planning Erie restaurant

Area chain hungry for geographical growth

Pittsburgh's 40-year-old dining tradition, Eat'n Park Restaurants Inc., is taking a major geographic leap with the opening of a restaurant in Erie.

The restaurant, which will be located adjacent to the new Yorktown Center shopping center near the entrance to Presque Isle State Park, will be the locally based chain's 51st, following the projected February 1990 opening of a Hermitage, Mercer County restaurant. The estimated $1.3 million construction of the Erie site should begin this month.

"It's a quite a jump," said Bob Moore, president and chief operating officer of Eat'n Park. "We think Erie is a good market with good locations."

The move to Pennsylvania's third-largest city will expand the chain's reach by nearly 100 miles -- New Castle is Eat'n Park's northernmost restaurant currently -- and be the first significant move in the company's long-term plan to expand its presence from a 60-mile radius of Pittsburgh to 125 miles or more …