Author Archives: mrdrivein

Dec. 9: Hilltop Drive-In Theatre, Chester WV

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It’s Day 343 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. There were more twisty highways this day, so it took almost an hour and a half to drive from the Starlight Drive-In, northwest of Butler PA, to the Hilltop Drive-In Theatre, southeast of Chester WV.

The Hilltop opened in July 1950, owned by Charles “Chuck” Pittinger with help from the Hanna Theatre Service. Hanna ran a lot of drive-ins back then, and Pittinger definitely has a Hilltop link. The Weirton Daily Times named him as the owner of the Hilltop Inn (in 1956), Hilltop Club (1959), Hilltop Lounge (1965), and Hilltop Inn again (1967). I’d bet that those were all names for the same place.

By the late 1970s, the Hilltop was listed as owned by “Anas Weir”. Was that a name, a company, or some of both? By 1984, it had dropped off the national lists. Brian Butko, writing in his book Greetings from the Lincoln Highway, said the Hilltop (just a ¾-mile detour away), “was closed from 1984 to 1989.”

Then the Hilltop’s history returns to solid ground. Longtime projectionist Joe Danko, who kept a ledger of every film shown there since 1951, bought the Hilltop in 1988. His daughter Katie Beaver helped resuscitate the drive-in, and she told the Daily Times in 2013, “We had to live down a reputation and prove that it was going to be a family drive-in again because they had been showing smut movies.”

They knew in 2013 that digital projection was coming, but in 2016 things got serious. In May that year, Beaver said she wouldn’t open for the season until she found a new projector. Today’s embedded video of the day comes from WTOV, the Upper Ohio Valley’s News Leader, as it reported the Hilltop’s plight from the drive-in’s empty field.

That changed a little in September 2016 when she found a distributor with a few current 35mm prints so the Hilltop could open for a few weekends, as recounted then in the Daily Times.

Over the past off-season, the Hilltop somehow found its digital projector. I can’t find any details except that the drive-in’s web site announced the change. However it happened, it was great news.

I had written about the Hilltop last year, but before my virtual visit I hadn’t grasped how close it is to the tip of the northern West Virginia panhandle. It’s barely a mile west of the Pennsylvania border and 2½ miles southeast of Ohio. The drive-in closed for the season in October, and I’m glad it’s in good shape to return next spring.

Miles Today / Total: 48 / 38897 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 200

Nearby Restaurant: When the drive-in is closed, I go looking for an old-fashioned diner. and when it’s cold and threatening to snow, I look for hot soup. Connie’s Corner took care of me very well for lunch, with homemade tomato soup and a fresh grilled cheese sandwich. In its cozy setting, it was the perfect antidote for late fall chills.

Where I Virtually Stayed: The closest hotel that I could verify was open is the Holiday Inn Express in the town next door, Newell WV. It was as nice as any HIE location, starting with warm cookies and hot coffee to take the edge off a blustery day. My room had the full set of modern amenities, and the standard HIE breakfast had those wonderful cinnamon rolls.

Only in Chester: The world’s largest teapot has been a fixture in Chester since it was built in 1938. According to the local library, it started its life as a 12-feet high, 44-feet wide wooden hogshead barrel for a Hire’s Root Beer advertising campaign. Its builder, William “Babe” Devon, added a spout and handle, plus a large glass ball for the knob of the lid. After a long life, it was restored by the city of Chester in 1990.

Next stop: Winter Drive-In, Wintersville OH.

Dec. 8: Starlight Drive-In, Butler PA

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It’s Day 342 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. The twisty, busy roads around here in western Pennsylvania aren’t made for speed; it took me almost an hour to drive the 35 miles from the Riverside Drive In Theatre in Vandergrift to the Starlight Drive-In northwest of Butler.

The Starlight spent most of its life as the Pioneer. Chester Demarsh opened the place in 1958, although his obituary said “After the war in 1947, he helped his dad convert part of the (family) farm into a drive-in movie theater.” I’m not sure whether that meant he did it a decade after he returned, or that he took a long time to build the Pioneer, or something else.

The Pioneer added two more screens between before 1993 (based on old aerial photos) and two more by 2006. Demarsh still owned the land when he passed away on Christmas 2012. Long before then, he’d given control of the Pioneer over to his business, Epic Theaters, eventually run by his sons.

The founder’s passing, and the need for digital projection equipment, caused some changes. In August 2014, one of Chester’s sons, Epic vice president Clint DeMarsh, told the Butler Eagle, “We’re not sure what will happen, but most likely the drive-in will open next year.” But it was an open question who would be running the place, since Epic had put the Pioneer up for sale.

Enter John and Beth Manson, who bought the drive-in, installed three digital projectors, performed other serious renovations, then reopened it as the Starlight. “We’d come here on a Friday or Saturday night,” John told KDKA, Pittsburgh’s News Leader. “…And we often would talk about what would we do differently if we owned it. Well, we own it now, and we implemented those changes.”

The renovated snack bar has a wider menu than in its Pioneer days, which is important since concessions account for most of a drive-in’s profits. They improved the rest rooms, and added some arcade games and a mini-golf course.

The most important part of the Starlight, for me on this night, is that they had a special Christmas drive-in weekend featuring The Polar Express and Elf. “Bundle up and Merry Christmas,” they wrote on their Facebook page. The special holiday menu included BBQ pork roll with homemade mac and cheese, rotini and homemade meat sauce, and lots of other hot comfort food. Which was a good thing, because the temperature during the movie was in the 20s.

The embedded video of the day is an episode of Faces and Places, thankfully available on YouTube.

When I started this odyssey over 11 months ago, my goal was 200 nights of watching a movie at a drive-in. This was the night I met that goal.

Miles Today / Total: 35 / 38849 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: The Polar Express / 200

Nearby Restaurant: I love getting more breakfast served to me for lunch, which is why I stopped in at Mac’s Route 8 Cafe. There’s nothing like huge pancakes on a cold day, especially with hot sausage and plenty of coffee to go with them. I barely had room left for dinner that night.

Where I Virtually Stayed: After a cold night at the drive-in, I was happy for the fire pit they had at the Hampton Inn in Butler. Meanwhile, everything else about the place was typically nice, including the coffee and cookies waiting for me at check-in. My room had the full set of modern amenities, and breakfast was the fine Hampton standard.

Only in Butler: Classic film fans might want to visit the Evans City Cemetery a few miles southwest of Butler. There aren’t any commemorative markers, but Roadside America assures us that this is where George Romero filmed the opening sequence of Night of The Living Dead.

Next stop: Hilltop Drive-In Theatre, Chester WV.

Dec. 7: Riverside Drive In Theatre, Vandergrift PA

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It’s Day 341 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. My drive got just a little longer but was only about 45 minutes from the Palace Gardens Drive In Theater in Indiana PA. Riverside Drive In Theatre in Vandergrift PA.

The Riverside, as promised, sits just across the highway from the Kiskiminetas River. It opened as the Woodland and was advertising by 1949. The 1952 Theatre Catalog listed it as Lee’s Woodland, owned by Harold Lee. In 1978, the drive-in closed.

In 1995, Jim Lipuma bought and refurbished the drive-in, renaming it the Galaxy. ”The drive-in has always been a love of mine,” he told The New York Times in 1997, adding that business had been better than expected. “Not a night goes by when someone doesn’t thank me for reopening the drive-in.”

Lipuma moved the Brookville, purchased the Moonlite and reopened it in May 1997. That may have been why he chose not to renew his lease with the Galaxy after the 2004 season. Todd Ament took over and reopened the drive-in in July 2005 as the Riverside to avoid entanglements with the Galaxy’s previous business dealings.

When the Pittsburgh City Paper talked with Ament in 2006, he said the name change was more important than he’d thought. “People think the Galaxy is gone,” he said, “and don’t know that the drive-in has re-opened. … It’s hard to advertise when you’re on a budget. You rely on word of mouth, and the Internet.”

The public radio program Marketplace talked with Ament in 2013 about the switch to digital projection. You can hear that report, and when he sounds like on the phone, below:

The Riverside’s main claim to fame these days is its twice-yearly dusk-to-dawn Monsterama celebrations of horror movies. The embedded YouTube video of the day shows the first few minutes of one of those shows. There’s another report of what it’s like here.

The drive-in had closed for the season in mid-October this year. I’m glad it will be back in the spring.

Miles Today / Total: 31 / 38814 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 199

Nearby Restaurant: I love the little comfort-food diner-style restaurants to refresh my soul after coming to another drive-in that’s closed for the season. The G & G Restaurant had all that. In this case, the cranberry walnut chicken salad for lunch gave me a nice mix of flavors and nutrition so I could feel smug while adding a slice of autumn cake with pumpkin, banana, and carrot. Great stuff!

Where I Virtually Stayed: I couldn’t find any hotels really close to the Riverside, so I had to head west to Tarentum where there’s a SpringHill Suites. This is one of those places where I could stay a week, with a kitchenette in my room. Wifi was solid. Breakfast had eggs and fruit and the continental regulars. It’s all good.

Only in Vandergrift: Just a few miles west in Tarentum, there’s the Tour-Ed Coal Mine and Museum, where visitors can experience what it was like to be a coal miner in the 1850s. There’s also an above-ground strip mine, a mine rescue vehicle, and a 1785 log house.

Next stop: Starlight Drive-In, Butler PA .