Author Archives: mrdrivein

Inc. Mag Spotlights KS Boulevard

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Boulevard Drive-In marquee

Photo © Jim Good. Used by permission.

As part of a tour of small businesses, Inc. magazine ran a very nice feature about the Boulevard Drive-In Theatre in Kansas City KS. It described the festivities of June 15, which the mayor proclaimed as Wes Neal Day in honor of the man who bought the drive-in 1984 after working there 30 years. Wes still owns the Boulevard, which is now run by his grandson Brian.

Although the drive-in was profitable most years, its recent turning point was in 2012 when it bought the equipment to become the first drive-in with 4K-resolution digital projection. As someone who saw movies there before and after the conversion, I can tell you that the brightness and clarity are especially important because of the Boulevard’s unusually large, narrow viewing field. It’s constrained by Turkey Creek, whose flooding in 1999 led to the insurance money for digital audio the next year.

It’s no surprise that, with the return of family-friendly feature films, business is booming. “Now when a new Disney or Pixar flick is on the bill, cars may line up three hours in advance to snag a spot,” Inc. wrote. Wes isn’t in it for the movies, but for the people who watch them. “Every weekend,” he says, “I will have a lot of people come up to me. They say they appreciate what we are doing for them.”

There is so much more in that Inc. article, including a few photos, so you know you really should go read it!

Greenville NY Hosts All-Electric Night

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Greenwood Drive-In screen with mountain background at sunset

Photo from the Greenwood Drive-In Facebook page

In upstate New York, the Capital District Electric Vehicle Drivers group organized what it believes to be the first all-electric car drive-in night on August 28. They held it at the Greenville Drive-In Outdoor Cinema, in Greenville of course, on what would have been an idle Tuesday night for the theater.

Michael Kamm wrote about organizing the effort in a guest post on Green Car Reports, and the story is as much about putting together any special night at a drive-in as it is about the special challenges of doing so with electric cars. “(Co-owner Dwight) Grimm wasn’t too keen on that idea at first and I had to talk him into it,” Kamm wrote. (There are probably also advantages to taking an electric vehicle to the drive-in, but I couldn’t find any in Kamm’s report.) The movie they watched, ironically no doubt, was the 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?; I think the filmmaker’s 2011 sequel Revenge of the Electric Car would have been better. That title even sounds like a drive-in movie. But I digress.

Another great part of the guest post is the way it fleshed out how the Greenville looks these days, something I could only guess at when I made my virtual visit there last November. “One of the unique features of this drive-in is its beer garden,” Kamm wrote. “Actually, it is much more than that. Dwight is a great bartender and can make some truly amazing cocktails, often from locally grown and produced ingredients.”

For many more details and a nice set of August 2018 photos of the Greenwood, you really ought to go read it.

Flea Market Company Buys The Rubidoux

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United Flea Markets, whose flagship location is a literal stone’s throw from the 88 Drive-In Theater in Commerce City CO, bought its first drive-in theater this week. According to a story in FleaMarketZone, the new acquisition is the Rubidoux Drive-In Theatre of Riverside CA.

According to that story, which reads a lot like a press release, “With its original 1948 screen tower still standing tall, The Rubidoux is the last of the classic drive-in theaters remaining in Southern California.” That might be a surprise to the Van Buren Drive-In Theatre, also in Riverside, which might think that opening in 1964 makes it old enough to be classic. Not to mention the Mission Tiki (1956) or the Vineland (1955), also in the Los Angeles area, or the Santee (1956) or the South Bay (1958) further south. But I digress.

The fun part about this story is the element of man bites dog. Historically, drive-ins added flea markets to add daytime revenue. Although there’s at least one former drive-in site that’s now only a flea market, this is the first I’ve heard of a flea market company diversifying into drive-in movies.

“Flea markets and swap meets serve as community gathering spaces where people come together and have a good time,” said Rob Sieban, head of United Flea Markets. “What better way to encapsulate that vision than through movie night?” Sounds like fun to me.