Category Archives: Pennsylvania

Dec. 8: Starlight Drive-In, Butler PA

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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 .

Dec. 6: Palace Gardens Drive In Theater, Indiana PA

Posted on by

It’s Day 340 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. Once again my drive took just a little over a half hour, from the Carrolltown Hi-Way Drive In just north of Carrolltown PA to the Palace Gardens Drive In Theater in Indiana PA.

The Palace Gardens opened on June 22, 1950. According to a 1984 article in the Indiana Gazette, Helen Kerzan conceptualized and named the drive-in, then her husband John, a structural steel welder, built the screen and speaker stands. Their children worked there from the beginning, and daughter Dorothy Kerzan managed the Palace Gardens from 1980 through the 1994 season.

For a couple of years in the mid-1950s, the Palace Gardens and some other theaters in the region ran into trouble when a prosecutor decided to begin enforcing an old state “Blue Law” against showing movies on Sundays unless local voters opted in. White Township voters finally passed that exemption in November 1957.

In March 1995, Dorothy Kerzan announced that the drive-in would not open that year after being “plagued by health problems” according to a contemporary account in the Gazette. “It’s sad after 45 years,” said Helen Kerzan, who was 87 and still lived next door, “but there comes a time when the years have piled up and you’re not able to go.”

Dorothy’s daughter Clarine Beatty, described at the time as “graduating from Penn State and getting married”, returned to Indiana, assumed ownership and reopened the Palace Gardens. As of 2016, she was still the owner. In 2010, she told the Gazette, “There was a guy who walked in here (the concession stand) last weekend and he said, ‘Wow, this looks exactly the same as how I remembered it.’ I said, ‘That’s because it is,’ It hasn’t changed. It’s pretty much identical. The last remodeling was done in the ’70s.”

Beatty’s husband, Mike Hudzick, was the projector and general maintenance guy. “It was Clarine’s goal to carry it on, so that’s how I got ‘suckered’ into this 15 years ago,” he said. “I’m just happy she wanted to continue it, because we enjoy it. It’s fun to see the smiling kids’ faces.”

Those kids were sad for awhile in 2016 when the Palace Gardens delayed its season opener until its owners could “find a digital projection option that works for us.” Just before Memorial Day, Beatty located one that had been used in a theater in England. After plenty of work to prepare the projection room, the drive-in reopened by early August.

The drive-in had closed for the season after Labor Day weekend this year. I’m glad it will be back in the spring.

Miles Today / Total: 29 / 38783 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 199

Nearby Restaurant: One of the relatively neglected cuisine on my odyssey has been the deli, which is why I had lunch at the 9th Street Deli just a couple of doors down from the Jimmy Stewart Museum (see below). Sometimes all I really need on a sunny, cold day is a hot cup of French onion soup and a loaded submarine sandwich.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Just to prove that I’m not a slave to Hampton Inn, I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn instead. Just like a Hampton, there were cookies and coffee waiting at check-in at the HGI. Just like a Hampton, my clean, comfortable room had all the modern amenities. But the HGI’s breakfast buffet is a notch above Hampton’s yet just as free for Hilton Gold members like me. Woohoo!

Only in Indiana (PA): Indiana, the Pennsylvania borough, was were noted actor Jimmy Stewart was born and raised. According to Roadside America, Indiana honored him with a life-size statue on his 75th birthday, but when Stewart dedicated it, the bronze statue wasn’t ready. They substituted a statue made of fiberglass, and when the bronze was ready, the early statue was moved to the Jimmy Stewart Museum.

Next stop: Riverside Drive In Theatre, Vandergrift PA.