The idea of an open air movie theater first phased Richard Hollingshead of Camden, New Jersey in the early 1930s. Hollingshead, who worked as a sales manager at his father’s company, Whiz Auto Parts, had extensive knowledge in automobiles. A motion picture buff, he combined these interests and envisioned a concept where people could watch a movie from the comfort of their own cars under...

Inspired by similar restaurants serving motorists in Los Angeles, Mel Weiss and Harold Dobbs founded Mel’s Drive-In restaurants in 1947 in San Francisco, California. Night and day, hordes of patrons that fancied dining-in-your-car came early and often. It didn’t take long for the first restaurant to multiply into eleven. In 1972, the original Mel’s located at 140 South Van Ness in San Francisco was selected...

Anyone who has ever enjoyed a movie at a drive-in theater back in its heyday, knows that seeing the movie was just one part of the enjoyment. Families made the drive-in a weekend adventure, filled with food, laughter and goodies that dad picked up from the concession stand during the intermission. These intermissions were mainly a product of a Chicago based company called Filmack Studios,...