Author Archives: mrdrivein

June 13: Stardust Twin Drive-In Theater, Chetek WI

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It’s Day 164 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. I had another short- to medium-sized drive again, just an hour and a half from Lake Elmo MN across the border to the Stardust Twin Drive-In Theater, just northwest of Chetek WI.

The Stardust is one of those modern, 21st century drive-ins with a retro vibe. It opened in May 2008, owned by Paul and Marlys Javener. Paul Javener told the Wausau Daily Herald in 2015, “We wanted to give people an experience they and their kids are going to remember. Everyone who has ever gone to the drive-in as a kid fondly remembers it, including myself, so we wanted to keep that going.”

Some drive-in owners may want to skip to the next paragraph. Javener also said, “One of the perks of the drive-in is you can bring in a lot of your own treats and snacks, so we serve items that are more like a complete meal or that people can’t easily bring in on their own, like pizzas, burgers and breadsticks.”

The Stardust has a little bit of everything. There’s a shaded deck, a tractor-pulled train for kids, a playground, and lots of fun space-themed kitsch. There’s even a second screen, added about the time it converted to digital projection in 2011.

What a great time it was for me to visit. There was a new YouTube video (embedded above) posted just two days earlier. The second screen started with a blockbuster that had previously eluded me, The Mummy. Chicken taquitos from the concession stand filled me up, and hot fudge coffee kept me awake. Good times!

Miles Today / Total:  89 / 21396 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: The Mummy / 80

Nearby Restaurant: The day before I was off by a letter in thinking that Gorman’s Restaurant might be a German restaurant. This day I was reward with the little Chetek Cafe. It was so German it even offered German coffee. (When I think of German coffee, I think of the Munich train station with a stand offering “Coffee To Go” in those English words. But I digress.) I had the Jaeger Schnitzel with mushroom gravy for lunch. Wunderbar!

Where I Virtually Stayed: There are at least a dozen resorts on Prairie Lake next to Chetek, but for just one night, I thought it would be more appropriate to stay at a mom and pop motel. Or maybe that’s just mom, since it’s called Mamma’s Cottage. This is a humble, vintage, wood-themed (formerly the Oaks Motel) place, but my room had a mini-fridge, a microwave, and wifi, plus a very low price.

Only in Chetek: Every summer around the Fourth of July, Chetek holds its Liberty Fest. The celebration includes a softball tournament, helicopter rides, a horse pull, and of course, fireworks.

Next stop: Moonlight Outdoor Drive In, Shawano WI.

New Drive-In Opening Soon in Maine

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Worker at the top of wooden poles building the drive-in screen

photo from the Narrow Gauge Cinema Facebook page

There’s great news from Farmington ME this week. According to the Franklin Sun Journal, the Farmington Planning Board gave its approval to a new Big Sky Drive-In adjacent to the Narrow Gauge Cinema in town. It’s a darned good thing the board went along because, as the photos here and in the Sun Journal story show, construction of the screen was already well underway.

Owner John Moore said the drive-in would hold up to 60 cars. When asked whether its driveways were wide enough, Moore told the board he had traveled the space with a 7½-foot plow on his truck all winter.

I know that sharing the concession stand infrastructure between several screens helps the economics of anything like this project, but I especially love this quote as the perfect reason why an indoor / outdoor movie combination is such a great idea. “(Moore) believes there will be a balance between the two, as during good weather, which is perfect for drive-in movies, the cinema is slow. It picks up on rainy summer days when drive-in attendance would slow down, he said.”

They plan to open the drive-in during this summer. Although 60 cars sounds a little small, I’m sure the Big Sky can be a great success.

 

June 12: Vali-Hi Drive-In, Lake Elmo MN

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It’s Day 163 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. There are long drives and short drives, but this one was in between. It took a little over two hours to get from Long Prairie MN to the Vali-Hi Drive-In in Lake Elmo, just east of St. Paul.

I’m not sure what year the Vali-Hi opened; I couldn’t find a good answer anywhere on the web. My old guidebook references suggest it was before 1969, probably in the middle of the decade. Whoever started it gave way by 1984 to Bob O’Neill, still the owner when he was the subject of a 2013 article in the Star-Tribune.

The article was prompted by the Vali-Hi’s then-recent conversion to digital projection. “Digital has made life a lot easier, but you really miss being in a projection booth and hearing the film running,” O’Neill said.

One of the Vali-Hi signatures, along with a nifty arcade and a black and white photo booth, is that it shows triple features every night. Just eight days from the summer solstice, that means this northern drive-in starts around 9:30, so a patron who concluded this week’s program (run time 348 total minutes) wouldn’t drive out until after 3 in the morning.

Fortunately, in the interest of waking up in time for free continental breakfasts wherever I stay, I always quit after the first movie. (It amuses me that many drive-ins’ FAQ pages include “Am I allowed to leave after just one movie?”) On my 11th consecutive night watching a movie (a new personal high), I didn’t mind watching Wonder Woman for a third time.

Miles Today / Total:  140 / 21307 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Wonder Woman / 79

Nearby Restaurant: I love a good German restaurant, so I was a little confused when I went to Gorman’s Restaurant in Lake Elmo. They gave me a funny look when I asked about a Schweinshaxe, so instead I chose one of my other favorites – breakfast in the middle of the day. I had a stack of wheatcakes and some biscuits and gravy, which together are probably just about as healthy as that pig knuckle.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Although there is a Holiday Inn in Lake Elmo’s city limits, the Holiday Inn Express just south of the city border in Woodbury was actually closer. This place was very nice, with a fridge in my room and plenty of hot options in the busy breakfast area the next morning.

Only in Lake Elmo: A few miles away in North St. Paul, you’ll find 20 tons of concrete stucco shaped into the World’s Largest Stucco Snowman. According to the North St. Paul web site, former barber Lloyd Koesling came back from a visit to Disneyland with a suggestion for the city council and Jaycees, who would traditionally build a snowman as part of the annual snow Frolics Festival using the excess snow from plowing. Long story short, construction was completed in 1974. On the day in 2002 when Koesling passed away, the snowman wore a somber black band on his arm.

Next stop: Stardust Twin Drive-In Theater, Chetek WI.