Category Archives: Video

Video: Delta CO’s Tru Vu changes hands

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There’s big news on Colorado’s Western Slope. George Rodriguez is the new owner of Delta’s Tru Vu Drive-In, as reported by KREX, Grand Junction’s News Leader. Actually, there’s been a lot of Tru Vu news over the past five years, so let me get you caught up.

When we last left the Tru Vu Drive-In in Delta CO, it was an early stop in my 2017 Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. I’ve written a lot about it since then, but it’s all been in my book, Drive-Ins of Colorado. If you’re a Carload completist with a copy of that book, you can skip down a couple of paragraphs.

After only a cursory check on the Tru Vu’s history, I wrote in my Odyssey stop there that it opened in 1954. That may or may not be accurate. Another passage was extremely off the mark: “A lot of drive-in theaters have some drama associated with them. They add screens, they lose screens. They shut down for a while, and sometimes reopen. Not the Tru Vu.” I couldn’t have been more wrong – in its first 15 years, the Tru Vu had the most tumultuous life of any drive-in I’ve heard of. That section took up two full pages in the book, and it’s beyond the scope of this post. Everything quieted down in 1968 when Jeannie and Stanley Dewsnup bought it along with Delta’s other theaters.

Stanley passed away in 2008, and Jeannie continued to operate the Tru Vu until she died in April 2019. James Lane and his family stepped in to run the drive-in only to hit the headwind that was the 2020 start to the Covid pandemic. He will always have a warm place in my heart, not just for this unselfish work, but also for giving me permission to use a photo of the Tru Vu for my book cover.

Now that we’re caught up, here’s the news from December 2022. Rodriguez began working with Jeannie Dewsnup in 1997 and became her “right hand” according to KREX. His daughter Jessikah Rodriguez remembered getting on a crane when her dad was painting the screen. Now the family is planning to embrace a 50s vibe and stay open longer. Sounds great!

I’m always happy to have any excuse to embed a drive-in video, and good news from a Colorado drive-in makes it even better. I hope you’ll agree that this was worth the wait.

Video: Transit Drive-In sold

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This sounds scary, but maybe it’ll work out. Longtime friend of this web site, Rick Cohen, announced this week that he’s selling the Transit Drive-In of Lockport NY to Dipson Theatres, which owns some of nearby Buffalo’s indoor theaters. As you can see in the video above, Cohan chose Dipson because it had the best chance of keeping the Transit operating because of their local presence.

Thanks to WGRZ, Buffalo’s News Leader, we know that the Transit is still doing well, but Cohen was just looking to retire and enjoy life. I hope that one of these months, after he’s got some great times out of his system, he sits down to write the Transit’s history, or maybe that of all New York drive-in theaters. He’s already shown that he can write – check out this poignant tale he contributed here a few years ago. Best wishes to Cohen and the Transit, soon to be two separate entities.

Video: Ceres CA Reopens

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Here’s some good news, sort of. The Ceres (CA) Drive-In, which had closed in 2008, will reopen soon thanks to the drive-in demand surge from the pandemic.

The Modesto Bee reported that Ripon resident Mark Stotzer has leased the old Ceres site, which still has one of its two old screens standing. “I had been looking at alternate sites to put something together,” the promoter told the Bee, “and then remembered there used to be a drive-in in Ceres.”

The old drive-in site has a lot of advantages over most of the pop-ups that have sprouted this year. It still has ramps, probably there when it opened in 1948. Its 100-foot screen in 40 feet off the ground, allowing more cars to see it clearly. And then there’s the name, which still resonates with some of the locals.

Although this is good news, I still feel awkward talking about it. Will this reborn Ceres remain in operation in a post-Covid world? (Will there be a post-Covid world?) For now, I’ll hold off on adding it to the Carload active drive-in list, but I always appreciate the opportunity to share a bit of video and hope with you. Enjoy!