The Wellfleet Drive-In Theater, the only

drive-in theater A drive-in theater or drive-in cinema is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor movie screen, a projection booth, a concession stand, and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movi ...

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

, located in

Wellfleet, Massachusetts Wellfleet is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, and is located halfway between the "tip" and "elbow" of Cape Cod. The town had a population of 3,566 at the 2020 census, which swells nearly sixfold during the summer. A t ...

along

U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...

, near the

Massachusetts Audubon Society The Massachusetts Audubon Society, commonly known as Mass Audubon, founded in 1896 by Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall and headquartered in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "protecting the nature of Massachusett ...

's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. The complex offers first-run double features in season, with other attractions such as indoor cinemas, a flea market, a miniature golf course, and restaurants. The Drive-In is one of the venues for the annual

Provincetown International Film Festival The Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF) is an annual film festival founded in 1999 and held on Cape Cod in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The festival presents American and international narrative features, documentaries and short films f ...

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...

Frommer's Frommer's is a travel guide book series created by Arthur Frommer in 1957. Frommer's has since expanded to include more than 350 guidebooks in 14 series, as well as other media including an eponymous radio show and a website. In 2017, the compan ...

lists the Drive-In as one of the "500 Places to See Before They Disappear" and ''

Travel and Leisure ''Travel + Leisure'' is a travel magazine based in New York City, New York. Published 12 times a year, it has 4.8 million readers, according to its corporate media kit. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC, with trademark rig ...

'' selected it as a Top Ten Retro Escape.

History

Its original owners, John Jentz and Charlie Zehnder, opened the drive-in on July 3, 1957. It has a screen, with sound provided by both an FM stereo signal and the original individual

monaural Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...

speakers that can be attached to a car's window. The mini-golf features obstacles that date back to 1961. The cinema was built in the 1980s; according to Eleanor Hazen, its owner at the time, one of the reasons the cinema was built is that film distributors started refusing to allow drive-ins to show first-run

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Wellfleet Cinemas
Drive-in theaters in the United States Cinemas and movie theaters in Massachusetts Wellfleet, Massachusetts 1957 establishments in Massachusetts Entertainment companies established in 1957

History

See also

References

External links