Malco’s Drive-in returns to eager patrons
Business booming after coronavirus shutdown
Customers sat in lawn chairs, in front seats, inside open hatch backs, in the beds of pickup trucks, and on the tops of automobiles, their legs dangling through open sun roofs like the legs of kids fishing off a pier.
Reporters pestered them and snapped their pictures, while television news crews photographed the lines of car that continued to snake through the gate even after sunset.
Movie theater managers from all over the area were present, to pitch in, to demonstrate team spirit, and to be part of what one executive characterized as a sign of “normalcy” during a very abnormal time.
Friday night, Malco’s Summer Quartet Drive-in reopened for business after a pandemic-motivated shutdown of two months — and business was good.
With capacity cut in half, to conform with city-county social-distancing guidelines, the drive-in’s 475 available spaces for cars sold out within hours after tickets went on sale online Thursday.
“After monitoring social media and seeing the pent-up demand, I never doubted for a second we would sell out,” said Karen Melton, Malco vice president and director of marketing.
“I’m not surprised, I’m excited,” she said. “It’s very emotional. This is something people want. Going to the movies — that sense of normalcy.”
But just how “normal” is the drivein? Its premise is novel (watch a movie from your car!), and its fans can be eccentric.
Trailed by teenagers and young children, drive-in devotee Shawanda Thomas, 47, said she had brought five moviegoers to see “The Invisible Man” — “six, if you count Chyanne,” she said, indicating the 2-year-old Yorkshire terrier cradled in the crook of her arm, near her crucifix pendant.
“This is her first time at the drive-in,” Thomas said of Chyanne (pronounced “Cheyenne”), adding that even the Yorkie was “just tired of being in the house.”
Although indoor movie theaters are likely to remain shuttered for about another six weeks, the four-screen Summer drive-in was allowed to reopen sooner than originally planned, moving up to Phase 1 from Phase 3 of the threephase “back to business” plan organized by Mayor Jim Strickland’s office and the Shelby County Health Department.
The Summer Quartet was judged independently of other movie theaters because it is primarily an outdoor business. Nevertheless, to have its reopening approved, the drive-in had to institute numerous changes in addition to halving the number of cars allowed inside.
Monitors worked the restrooms and the parking areas in front of each screen, to encourage social distancing. The indoor concession stand was closed to customers, who instead ordered at a makeshift walk-up window, and picked up their food at another window.
As a result, about 25 staffers worked the drive-in Friday night, compared to about eight on a pre-coronavirus night, said drive-in manager Lee Kirk.
In addition, Malco instituted a new ticket policy to help control the number of cars. Tickets to the drive-in are now $20 per car, and must be bought in advance at malco.com. A car can hold any number of people, making $20 a bargain price for the many families that had brought three, four, five or six kids to the double feature of “Trolls World Tour” and “Dolittle” now occupying two of the drive-in’s screens. (The other two screens feature adult-oriented horror movies, “The Invisible Man” and “The Hunt.”)
One of about 330 drive-in theaters still in operation in the U.S., the Malco drive-in at 5310 Summer originally opened on Sept. 1, 1966, when newspaper advertisements boasted that the facility was “As Modern as Tomorrow,” with “Modern Self Service” and “23 Paved Acres — No Gravel, No Dust or Mud.” Coming in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Friday’s reopening seemed similarly hopeful, at least in the eyes of the news media, which showed up in force to give the drive-in more coverage than it probably had received at any time since 1966.
Some families said they had never been to the drive-in before Friday, but were eager for a change-of-pace activity after weeks of coronavirus isolation. Others were drive-in regulars who had been impatient for the return of openair cinema.
“We’ve been coming here three or four times a month in the summer, for close to seven years,” said Joe Hunter, 39, waiting for the “Trolls” sequel with his wife, April, and three sons, Damien, 7, Sentoria, 10, and Jaheim, 11, each sitting in a small identical red chair in front of their dad’s car.
And what’s the appeal? Explained Jaheim: “It’s a big bulletin board where you can see a whole movie.”