In the latest of this fall’s drive-in openings, this weekend the Coyote Drive-In chain added its third location, in Lewisville TX. This one has five screens and the usual Coyote mixture of restaurant, bar, and a modern movie experience.

I had hoped to add some local TV video of the grand opening or at least some newspaper coverage, but I couldn’t find any. There are plenty of stories leading up to it, including articles in the Lewisville Leader, the Denton Record-Chronicle, D Magazine, and even the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Since there’s nothing since, that should mean that all went well.

According to the Record-Chronicle, which also has a couple of nice photos, the Coyote folks have learned from their first location in Fort Worth. There, the bar and concession area are outdoors, but they’re inside a 10,000 square foot building in Lewisville. “The indoor area of the canteen is mainly to have an area where people can be comfortable in the heat,” said Steve Winn, the Coyote’s chief operating officer. “We’ll often have 3,000 or 4,000 people here on a Friday night, … and we needed to have a facility that could handle that kind of crowd and feed them dinner.”

There’s more information in all of those pre-opening articles, so to immerse yourself in this good news, you should go read ’em!

Artist’s rendering from the Coyote web site

Is the Coyote model the future of drive-in theaters? After successful openings in Fort Worth TX and Leeds AL, another Coyote Drive-In is scheduled to open in Lewisville TX before the end of October. The Lewisville Texan Journal ran a story with plenty of the details.

The newest Coyote will open with five screens, and the Texan Journal says it’ll expand to six next year. It will include the Coyote signature touches of an indoor/outdoor restaurant and kids play area. The Lewisville drive-in has been under construction for months, and was originally scheduled to open in July.

Coyote Chief Operating Officer Steve Winn said the special reflective material on the screen will make the movies as easy to watch as indoors. “I think people will find it’s the brightest image they’ve seen on a drive-in ever,” he said.

In February, Lewisville granted over $300,000 in incentives to the Coyote in exchange for allowing the city to use it for special event parking and for hosting an annual city event. “We are thrilled (Coyote) chose Lewisville and think they have a lot to bring to our community,” city spokesman James Kunke said, “and we want to support their success.”

It’s great to see another city recognize the value of a good drive-in. The Lewisville Texan Journal has a lot more on the story, including a fine photo, so go read it!

This is another installment in our occasional series, Things That are Not Drive-Ins. There are so many faux “drive-ins” that pop up every year that it requires something special to make it to a Carload post. The Community First village proposed for Austin TX is that kind of special project.

Mobile Loaves & Fishes has spent over a decade serving Austin’s chronically homeless, finding inexpensive housing and work to get some of them off the streets. Now MLF has announced an ambitious project to build an entire gated community of otherwise homeless residents, as described by KVUE, Austin’s news leader.

KVUE said that Community First would include a drive-in theater. That caused the same double-take I get when I hear requests to donate furniture for the homeless: If some poor soul doesn’t have a roof over his head, where’s he going to put that furniture, and if he’s got a car, why would he drive to a movie? As it turns out, this time KVUE was not completely accurate, probably for the first time in its history. The Community First blueprints clearly show an “outdoor theater,” albeit with spaces for about a dozen cars in a nearby parking lot.

Although the idea of a gated community with a private drive-in is appealing, I have to say that this will not be a true drive-in theater. I do wish its organizers all the best for using private funds to give the homeless a path back to productive society.