Drive-ins are far and few between in Chicago, having been on the decline since the rise of home entertainment in the 1980s. The last remaining drive-in in the city, Cascade Drive-In, closed in 2019, after the landowner decided not to permit the theater to reopen for the season.
Just one year later, however, the COVID pandemic called for innovations that would change life as we knew it and sparked new experiences. This included the rebirth of Chicago drive-in culture with the opening of Pilsen’s ChiTown Drive-In.
“We carved ourselves out in a space [that needed an] alternative movie experience that promoted not an old culture but a new culture, a new need for social distancing and safety,” said Jonathan Williams, ChiTown Drive-In’s director of marketing and development.
In the heart of the pandemic, ChiTown Drive-In allowed for community. All, families and singles alike, were able to safely watch movies on the big screen as they’d previously done in AMC without worrying about social distancing rules. They could pop open their trunks, get cozy under blankets, and watch the movie—having a semi-intimate experience that standard theatres lack.
“The thing about the drive-in has never been the movie, but the nostalgia, the feeling, and the experience…We’re trying to combine that old nostalgia that some people felt with this new alternative experience,” Williams said. “What we did get from the pandemic was newness and a new appreciation.”
It wasn’t until their fifth year, as pandemic restrictions all but fell away, that they began to wonder why the Drive-In continued to thrive. What was keeping people coming back across their gravel lot and tuning their radios to watch what was on the big screen?
The answer? It had become what the people needed most: a new hub for the community.
Since its 2020 opening, the Drive-In has become a space where people have been able to come together to break bread. Williams has watched people come and fall in love with the experience and bring others. The Drive-In has plans to host nights in collaboration with cultural organizations in the city, such as their recent collaboration with the National Museum of Mexican Art for their Selena screening in honor of the museum’s Selena Week.
There are also accommodations they are able to adjust for everyone to watch and enjoy their movie-watching experience in a way that bigger theaters can not. George recalls how the theater was able to include text captions to allow a deaf couple to enjoy a drive-in movie. At ChiTown Drive-In, everyone deserves an opportunity to experience the space.
ChiTown Drive-In, 2343 S. Throop St. chitowndrivein.com
Layla Brown-Clark is a Morgan Park journalist passionate about telling arts and culture and news stories about the city’s South Side.