It’s Day 249 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. I circled Montreal from the northwest to the northeast, from the Drive-in Saint-Eustache, in Saint-Eustache of course, to the Cine-parc Boucherville in Boucherville QC of course. The drive only took about 40 minutes.
The Ciné-Parc Boucherville was the first drive-in to open in Quebec in July 1970, but that wasn’t this Cine-parc Boucherville. Thank goodness for Mike Rivest’s Montreal Cinema History page and his note on a Cinema Treasures page, because this is very confusing. The old one, which closed in 1985, was just west of the Boulevard de Montarville at Route 20’s exit 95. The new one is just east of the Boulevard de Montarville at Route 20’s exit 95.
The current Boucherville opened as the Ciné-Parc Odeon, owned by Odeon Theatres, in 1974 with the same two screens it has now. It changed its name to Boucherville in 2006. This drive-in is still huge, with a capacity of about 2000 cars, and it’s still surrounded by acres of farmland.
From everything I read, what I can make out of it, the Boucherville is doing great. Daniel Séguin, general manager of Cineplex, which owns the drive-in, told Radio Canada in 2015, “Le goût d’aller au ciné-parc est souvent lié à la première visite quand on est jeune. On y est allé avec ses parents, et plus tard, on veut le faire découvrir à ses propres enfants.” Google Translate says that means something like, “The taste of going to the movie theater is often linked to the first visit when you are young. We went there with his parents, and later we want to make him discover his own children. ”
The YouTube video of the day show a fun-looking festival hosted by the Duval Scion car dealership in early 2011. There are just enough glimpses of the drive-in to make it worthwhile to embed here.
The Cine-parc Boucherville showed its final movies of the season last Saturday. This is the first time I’ve run into three dark days in a row since late May. I guess summer really is over.
Miles Today / Total: 32 / 28663 (rounded to the nearest mile)
Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 160
Nearby Restaurant: For one evening, I wanted to just stick around close to my hotel, but I found a real winner close by, Le Tire-Bouchon. I didn’t tell them that I thought the name sounded a lot like Tirebiter, and the food was much better than steel-belted rubber. The appetizer, entree and dessert were all one package price, so the columns I picked were green salad, duck magret, and Cru du Clocher cheese with walnut bread. Yum!
Where I Virtually Stayed: The Comfort Inn in Boucherville is a lot like most Comfort Inns in the states, and that’s a good thing. My room had the full set of modern amenities, and the hot breakfast in the morning was another Comfort standard. Just another solid place to stop for the night.
Only in Boucherville: This city is home to the Brasserie New Deal Brewing Co., a microbrewery that’s also a benefit corporation. That’s one of the three reasons I was happy to visit. The other two are fresh beer (of course) and the coincidence that it sits on the site of the original Ciné-Parc Boucherville.
Next stop: Cine-Parc Mont St-Hilaire, Mont-Saint-Hilaire QC.