Author Archives: mrdrivein

Great times at the Rodeo

Posted on by

rodeo_URLThere’s a type of newspaper article that I read all the time, often once per year per newspaper. It’s the fun summer article that says, in effect, “Hey, have you readers noticed that we still have a drive-in theater near here? I went, and it turns out that it’s lots of fun!” I suspect that they’re often written by summer interns, but you never know.

Of course, you already know about the unmatched experience that is a trip to the drive-in, but sometimes it can be fun to see how others discover it. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that you might be interested in the Central Kitsap (WA) Reporter’s story last week about the Rodeo Drive-In near Bremerton.

The best news is that the Rodeo has made the transition to digital, a $250,000 investment according to owner Jack Ondracek. “We’ve known this project was coming for 10 years,” he said. “We’ve been planning for this for a long time. We bought and paid for this with the support of our customers.”

There’s a lot of fun discussion with Ondracek and Rodeo patrons, so you really ought to go read it!

After you’re done with the article, head over to the Rodeo’s web site. It’s got some interesting regional history, lots of nice photos, and a great quote at the end of the All About Us page: “Drive-in theatres are special places, with a nostalgic atmosphere that can’t be found in an indoor theatre.”

The Tyler TX drive-in that no one talks about

Posted on by

There’s a drive-in east of Tyler TX that doesn’t seem to engender much civic pride. It’s one drive-in that doesn’t need to worry about converting to digital projection because it apparently dumped film a long time ago. I’ve never been there, but according to two reports, the Apache Drive-In now shows adult-rated movies, and business is pretty good. According to Google Maps, as of April 2013, the place looks pretty much the way it did when Captain Chicken and someone from filmmaker Lucid, Inc. visited, separately.

Captain Chicken, aka Terry Moore, runs (ran?) a Texas Drive-In page. His report from 2002 is the more extensive of the two, including more photos. He determined that the reason the image on the screen was so dim was that the movie was being delivered by a home theater-type projection system in a box a short distance from the large, damaged screen. That’s what he saw, and we’ll have to take his word for it. As he wrote, “The duty manager was less than cooperative. He refused to discuss the projection source. In fact, he was unwilling to discuss anything related to the theater.”




The page at Lucid, Inc. is undated, but Archive.org first noticed it in 2012, so that’s likely to be the year it was written. It includes a few photos suggesting that the Apache didn’t change much for 10 years. The “bite” at the upper-right corner of the screen had widened, validating Captain Chicken’s theory that nearby trees had grown to knock down that piece. The projection box, entrance sign, and ticket booth looked pretty much the same as they had a decade earlier. And the folks there were just as uncooperative. “On the porch sits a husky, overall-clad man fiddling nervously with a large diamond stud in one ear,” the Lucid-eer wrote. “He has very little to say about who owns the still up and running XXX drive-in theater – except that she is a private person who is quite happy to remain unknown. ‘This is East Texas, honey. The big shiny buckle of the bible belt. Ain’t nobody gonna talk to you about what they do here.’ ”

I don’t know what else to say. The 1955 Theatre Catalog showed three drive-ins in Tyler, the Crest, Rose Garden, and Starlite, but it’s unclear if any were what would become the Apache. This spring, I had the opportunity to snap a picture of an allegedly similar drive-in near El Paso, but I routed my Arizona-New Mexico trip through Alamogordo NM instead. I’d rather see another family-oriented drive-in near Tyler, but if that’s what the locals want, I guess that’s their business. Still looks kinda creepy to me.

Update: On March 9, 2023, the Apache Drive-In Facebook page, the apparently official account posted “Sad to announce the Apache Drive-In Theatre is permanently closed and the property has been sold.”

Tyler drive-in asks for conversion help

Posted on by

According to KLTV, Tyler TX’s news leader, the Sky Vue Drive-In there is asking for help in converting from its vintage film projector to new digital equipment. Skyvue is offering future advertising space and long-term passes to earn the remaining $64,000 it needs for the conversion. Ominously, the Sky Vue’s web page features a clock counting down to August 31.

As you’ll see in the embedded video, the Phillips family opened the Sky Vue in 2006. “My husband’s the guy in the ticket booth, my son does the projection, Tracey does the cash register, and I’m back in the kitchen making pizza,” said Rhonda Phillips, one of the owners.

As KLTV’s Summer Dashe put it, the conversion process would mean the drive-in’s “five foot tall film player will be replaced by a server about the size of a small box.” I’d never heard it described that way, but it makes perfect sense. Servers are the size of a small box, as long as your idea of a small box matches the size of a server. And coining the term “film player” is a great advancement; I hope they also call pay phones “standup corded money phones” in Tyler.

One interesting part of the story is what KLTV didn’t mention: Tyler has a second drive-in. That drive-in stopped using film a long time ago, and it’s unlikely to ask the community for help. I’ll tell you the story of that second Tyler drive-in tomorrow.