Category Archives: 2017 Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey

This is the virtual tour that will imagine what it would be like to visit every North American drive-in theater in 2017 by visiting one or two every day. While the drive-ins, restaurants, and hotels are real, all the events in this section are fiction. But it’s fun to dream!

Sept. 29: Rustic Tri Vue Drive-In, North Smithfield RI

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It’s Day 272 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. The direct route from Mansfield Center CT to North Smithfield RI is mostly US Highway 6, the old Grand Army of the Republic Highway. Driving for about an hour and a half, it was a classic way to get to the state’s only remaining drive-in, the Rustic Tri View Drive-In.

The Rustic opened as a single-screen drive-in in 1951. My old Theatre Catalogs list the first owner as M. Stanzler. That’s might be Meyer Stanzler, who ran the nearby Boro Drive-In and later owned the Rhodes On The Pawtuxet ballroom.

At some point in the 1960s or 70s, the Rustic switched to adult films, and during this period attracted a reputation that lingered long enough to be brought up in a 2013 TV interview.

That changed in 1986 when Clem and Beverly Desmaris, who first met at the Rustic decades earlier, purchased the place and switched to general release movies. Clem told The New York Times a decade later, “(W)e were skeptical about business if we dropped the X-rated movies. But we wanted it to be a family place again, so we added a couple of screens, figured we’d make a go of it, and business has been good ever since.” Those two extra screens were added in 1988, changing the drive-in’s name to include Tri-View.

A 2007 article in the Providence Journal, captured on a post at Film-Tech.com, talked about their daughter Beth Desmaris, who took over after her parents passed away in 2001. She said that she sometimes sold out all three screens on busy weekend nights, and that some patrons actually asked her why the Rustic doesn’t have matinees (“and the scary thing is, they’re serious.”)

The Providence Business News picked up the next big change. Just before the 2008 season, the Desmaris family sold the Rustic to Boston Culinary Group, a food-service management company that had previously helped run the Rustic’s concession stand. Among its 21 theaters, it’s the only drive-in. The director of the company’s theater division told PBN that company founder Joseph O’Donnell “didn’t want to see the place close – that was a big part of it. There wasn’t interest right away [from others] in buying it.”

The Rustic upgraded to digital projection in June 2013, prompting a lengthy interview with plenty of video clips of the drive-in on WPRI, Providence’s News Leader. The menagerie that roams the grounds during the day underscores just how remote and tree-lined this place is.

That’s a very good video, but few can beat a good drone shot like today’s embedded YouTube video by Sonny Solan. I like the set-up context that many of these drone videos lack. For still more video, try a 2008 staycation postcard of the Rustic from The Herald News.

Miles Today / Total: 55 / 31772 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Mother! / 172

Nearby Restaurant: It’s only a mile and a half to drive from Lil & Gene’s Restaurant to the Rustic, though the trip in the other direction is almost five miles because you can’t turn left out of the drive-in. Lil & Gene’s is the place to be on a Friday night for the seafood. Fish and chips plus crab cakes plus clam chowder all add up to a real Friday feast!

Where I Virtually Stayed: The Hampton Inn in Smithfield is just 10 minutes away from the drive-in, and it’s still my favorite chain. It offers a free shuttle to the Twin Rivers Casino, which would have been attractive on a night the drive-in was closed. There were cookies waiting for me when I checked in. My room had all the modern amenities, and breakfast was the very nice, dependable Hampton standard.

Only in North Smithfield: A 20-foot tall milk can building sits just up the highway from the Rustic. According to the ReStore the Milk Can Building in North Smithfield page on Facebook, “Opened as The Milk Can in 1929 as an ice cream shop and closed in 1968, the milk bottle building is empty. … This building is an important, historical, Rhode Island landmark and should be renovated before it is too late! Spread the word until the right person reads about it and makes it happen! We can make a difference!”

Next stop: Mendon Twin Drive-In, Mendon MA.

Sept. 28: Mansfield Drive-in Theatre, Mansfield Center CT

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It’s Day 271 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. There sure are a lot of twisty highways around here. It took two hours to drive just 82 miles from Amenia NY to the Mansfield Drive-in Theatre in Mansfield Center CT.

The Mansfield opened in April 1954, built for $150,000 by owners Morris Keppner and Louis Lipman. It featured “the largest screen in eastern Connecticut, 116 feet wide and 62 feet high,” and its original 750-car capacity was bumped to 850 after its first season, suggesting how successful it was. My last note of Keppner as owner was 1966, although it may have changed hands before or after that date.

What I know for sure is that in a 2016 interview with current owner Michael Jungden, he said he started managing the Mansfield in 1974 and leased it “a few years” after that. Jungden added two more screens in 1985, just as cable TV came to town, and bought the Mansfield in 1991.

In Diane Smith’s recent book Seasons of Connecticut, Jungden said, “The first time I came and saw this place it really looked like a place that nobody loved, but it was really a beautiful piece of property.” About how he keeps the place running, he said, “I repair things. I’m the projection booth repairman, and I’m the soda machine repairman. When the soda machine breaks, I fix it because by the time Pepsi gets here I’ve already lost a few hundred dollars.”

Another way the Mansfield stays alive is that every Sunday it transforms into the Mansfield Marketplace flea market, including an indoor area Jungden purchased a few years ago. And it was one of the first drive-ins to switch to digital projection, all three screens, by 2012.

This night was a special occasion, the kind that digital projection makes possible. The rockumentary of Black Sabbath’s final show was appearing in theaters for one night only, and the Mansfield opened just its main viewing area for a cover band followed by the movie. It’s always nice to see something new, especially when I know I won’t be seeing it again this year.

Miles Today / Total: 82 / 31717 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Black Sabbath: The End Of The End / 171

Nearby Restaurant: The Farmer’s Cow Calfé & Creamery in Mansfield Center was opened by a local group that said “it couldn’t just be a café, we’re dairy farmers with cows and calves, it needed to be a Calfé!” To get in the moo-d (my turn for a pun), I had the “English ploughman’s lunch” of a wedge of cheese, an open-faced ham sandwich, and a hard-boiled egg. And an ice cream sundae for dessert, because that’s the true specialty here.

Where I Virtually Stayed: The closest hotel, and maybe the only one in Mansfield Center, is the Best Western on Storrs Road. After a few stays at bed and breakfasts, it was nice to return to a room with the full set of modern amenities. The continental breakfast had a few hot items in the morning as well as the usuals. I was safely back in the 21st century.

Only in Mansfield Center: In Willimantic, just a few miles south of the drive-in, they hold a Boom Box Parade every July. It’s called that because of the parade’s music sources, instead of marching bands. The Norwich Bulletin wrote, “The largest parade of its kind in the country and perhaps the state’s most famous, the Boom Box Parade allows anyone to march with two caveats: they must have a radio tuned to WILI AM to broadcast the marching music and they need to sport the patriotic colors of the American flag.”

Next stop: Rustic Tri Vue Drive-In, North Smithfield RI.

Sept. 27: Four Brothers Drive In, Amenia NY

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It’s Day 270 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. My drive of almost four hours today was a bit longer than my typical day’s trip, but I was so excited that anybody would be showing movies on a Wednesday night at this time of year. So I headed almost due south from Bethel VT to the Four Brothers Drive In in Amenia NY.

A few decades ago, Amenia hosted what may have been the smallest permanent drive-in in the USA. From 1965 through 1983, no more than 54 (the Poughkeepsie Journal says 44) cars at a time squeezed in behind an auto body shop to watch a movie on a 32-foot-wide screen. (The world record holder for smallest drive-in, at 36 cars, remains the Jericho Drive-In in the Australian outback.)

Less than a mile down the road from that long-forgotten site stands Four Brothers Pizza Inn, the Amenia outpost of a small regional chain. Since that location opened in 1978, it’s possible that someone there remembered the old Amenia Drive-In. In 2013, owners Paul and John Stefanopoulos (sons of William and nephews of the other three founding brothers) decided to add a drive-in theater to their restaurant. It would be nostalgic, quirky, and state of the art. So that’s exactly what they did.

“People can relate to it no matter what their age,” Paul told Rural Intelligence. “We wanted to make it a place you could come and hang out with your family or on a date.”

This drive-in’s features and decor are amazing. There’s an art deco painting on the projection building wall, a classic four-letter square “LOVE” in lights, a water fountain and a fire pit (not in the same place). Patrons can order food from the restaurant and have it delivered to their car, where other employees will wash the windshield on request. There’s even a charging station for electric cars, the first at a drive-in theater but I’ll bet that’ll become a popular feature very soon.

There’s mini-golf, which is always a smart addition, and the Four Brothers also hosts weddings at the drive-in. On Throwback Thursdays, they show classic movies. I’m just a little sad that I missed one of those.

Rural Intelligence wrote that the original four brothers “often told their children that one of the first things they did when they came to America in the 1970s was go to the drive-in. They had a dream in the back of their minds that someday they would open their own.” I can’t imagine a better little drive-in than the Four Brothers, where the web site says “We are a boutique cinema in pursuit of magic.”

The YouTube video of the day is the first of a two-part series where the brothers explain what they wanted in a drive-in and what it looks like now. Be sure to click on Part 2. Also, if you get Food Network, check them out on the Drive-In Date Night episode of Farmhouse Rules; check for its next air date here.

For me, the best part of the Four Brothers experience is that it’s actually showing movies on the last Wednesday night of September. Sure, it’s a fun place, but the most important thing is the restaurant lets it stay functioning seven nights a week.

Miles Today / Total: 176 / 31635 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: It / 170

Nearby Restaurant: It would be impolite if I didn’t eat at the Four Brothers Restaurant, where pizza and other Italian food are the specialties. Along with big Greek salads, so that’s what I had in my intermittent quest to eat healthy. It had the feta cheese, cucumbers, olives and peppers mixed into a nice heap of lettuce.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Since there aren’t a lot of hotels near the Four Brothers, I picked a bed and breakfast that was close by, the Hilltop House. I reserved one of the rooms with a private bath, in consideration of my fellow guests, and was surprised how good the wifi was in this century-old mansion. The next morning, I ate an amazing breakfast on the screened porch and was ready to face another day.

Only in Amenia: Every year the town holds a Strawberry Festival in late spring. The Amenia Library, founded in 1938, co-sponsors the event, featuring a silent auction, baked goods, and a book sale. The 2017 festival took place on May 20 at the Four Brothers Drive-In.

Next stop: Mansfield Drive-in Theatre, Mansfield Center CT.