The drive-in almost disappeared. Texas had nearly four hundred of them in the nineteen-fifties, more than any state in the country, and now there are fewer than twenty. The ones that survived did it on stubbornness, mostly — family-owned places that never stopped believing a warm night and a big screen and a car full of people was a good way to spend a Friday. Some of them have been running the same single screen since 1948. Some have expanded into four and seven screens. They all still tune to FM radio for the sound. They all still sell popcorn that tastes better than it has any right to. And every one of them is worth the drive from Dallas for a weekend.
Here are the five I would point you toward, from the closest one to the furthest.
Start with the easiest, because it is thirty minutes away. Coyote Drive-In sits right on the Trinity River in downtown Fort Worth at 223 Northeast 4th Street, with the Fort Worth skyline rising up behind the screens. It opened in 2013, which makes it the newest place on this list, but the bones of it are right. Four screens, gates open at six, movies start at dark, eight dollars for adults and five for kids five to eleven. Food trucks pull in on weekends and a beer garden overlooks the river. Live music before the show some nights. It is the drive-in for somebody who wants to try a drive-in for the first time and does not want to commit to a real road trip. Also the one to take a date to on a warm Friday night when you want the movie to be just one part of the evening.
An hour south of Dallas in Ennis is Galaxy Drive-In, 5301 North Interstate Highway 45, and it is something genuinely special. Seven screens. One of the highest screen counts of any drive-in in the country. Opened in 2004 by a family that has been running it ever since, and the projection is all digital, some of it in 3D, which you do not see at drive-ins anywhere else. The concession stand goes beyond popcorn and hot dogs into pizza and nachos and things you would not expect. Arrive early, grab a spot near a speaker pole, bring folding chairs if you want to watch from outside your car. Ennis puts on a bluebonnet festival in April that makes it the prettiest drive down I-45 of the whole year. Worth planning a whole Saturday around.
An hour west of Fort Worth in Granbury is the Brazos Drive-In at 1800 West Pearl Street, and this is the one for the nostalgists. Open since Memorial Day weekend of 1952, single screen, 250-car capacity, cash only, pet friendly, and closed during the winter months. Double features every night they are open. Free Movie Wednesdays when they can swing it. They will deliver snacks to your car if you do not want to walk to the concession stand. Granbury itself is worth a weekend — a restored historic square, a clear blue lake, barbecue joints and small-town steakhouses — and the drive-in is the reason to stay the night instead of driving home after dinner.
Keep going northwest another hour and a half to Graham, Texas, and you will find the Graham Drive-In at 1519 Fourth Street, which is the oldest continuously operating drive-in in Texas. Opened in 1948. Single screen, 300-car capacity, family-owned for most of its history. The kind of place where the owner still works the ticket window on Saturday nights and remembers your kid’s name from last summer. Pets are welcome on a leash. Lawn chairs are fine. No outside food, but the concession stand is part of the charm. Graham is a small town about two hours from both Fort Worth and the Oklahoma border, and a weekend there is quiet in the best sense of the word — a drive-in movie, a diner breakfast the next morning, and a slow drive back on country roads.
And for the longest haul, which is worth it, Stars and Stripes Drive-In in New Braunfels at 1178 Kroesche Lane. Three screens, opened in 2015 by the same family that runs the Lubbock location, and the whole thing was built from the ground up to feel like a drive-in from 1956 — a fifties-themed café on site, a playground for kids to burn off energy before the movie starts, retro neon, the works. Open seven nights a week, rain or shine, gates at seven-thirty. New Braunfels is three and a half hours from Dallas, which is a real drive, but it is also right next to the Comal and Guadalupe rivers, and a weekend down there that combines a float trip on Saturday afternoon with a drive-in movie Saturday night and a late breakfast Sunday morning is one of the better little trips you can put together in Texas.
A few things worth knowing for any of them. Gates typically open an hour before showtime, and you want to arrive early to get a good spot. FM radio is the sound source everywhere, so your car’s radio needs to work — and you should bring an external Bluetooth speaker or a cheap battery-powered radio as backup, because leaving your headlights and engine running for a two-hour movie is a good way to come out to a dead battery. Bring cash. Some of these places are cash-only and the concession stands move faster that way even when they take cards. Bring a blanket for after the sun goes down, because Texas nights cool off fast even in June. And check the operating schedule before you drive. Brazos and Graham close for winter. Coyote runs year-round but sometimes shuts down for weather. The websites are up to date, mostly.
The drive-in is one of the few forms of entertainment Texas invented a version of, held onto, and did not wreck. Five of them still worth the trip. Pick a Friday, pick a car full of people, pick a movie you do not care that much about because the point is not really the movie. The point is the evening.
