Lubbock, Texas: Drive-In Theater Opens Due to Popular Demand for Outdoor Movies
Stars & Stripes Drive-In opened in 2003 in Lubbock, Texas — one of a small but growing number of drive-ins built from scratch since the 1990s. The following is adapted from a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article by John Austin, written at the theater’s opening.
A New Drive-In Lights the Night in Lubbock
Ryan Smith was 25 years old and had just dropped out of SMU law school when he staked $750,000 to $1.5 million of loans and family savings to convert 24 acres of West Texas cropland along US-84 northwest of Lubbock into the Stars & Stripes Drive-In. The theater opened with capacity for 1,000 cars and room for a third screen if business warranted. Smith programmed family double features — Freaky Friday and Finding Nemo — alongside PG-13 fare like S.W.A.T., with sound delivered via FM radio rather than the old clip-on speakers.
The drive-in industry had seen better days: Texas once had 450 drive-ins; suburban sprawl and compact cars decimated them in the ’80s. By 2003, about 426 operational drive-ins remained across the US, though 37 had been built since 1990 — in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. Affordability was part of the draw. “For a family of four to go out to a regular movie, it’s $70” with soft drinks and snacks, said Rhett Butler Burns, who reopened Amarillo’s deserted Tascosa Drive-in in 1999. “Here, you can get in and get your popcorn and a Coke for $30.”
Smith had drive-in blood. His grandfather, Skeet Noret, opened the Sky-Vue Drive-In in Lamesa, Texas in 1948 and at 81 still ran a Lubbock discount theater with his wife. Smith brought a pair of vintage Century projectors from Noret’s old theaters to the Stars & Stripes and imported the Sky-Vue’s legendary Chihuahua sandwich — chili, grated cabbage, pimento cheese, and pickled jalapeño between two fried corn tortillas, a recipe from Smith’s great-grandfather — paying Noret a royalty on each one. The Sky-Vue had sold more than 25,000 in a single season.
Drive-in columnist Joe Bob Briggs captured the romance of the form: “John Wayne came for the outdoor premiere of True Grit. He stood on top of the concession stand and fired off his pistols.” Bobby Sanders, a longtime soda supplier to Noret’s theaters, summed up his plans for opening night at the Stars & Stripes: “I’m going to drop the top on the Z3. And I’m going to smooch, too.”