Those who are hungry during their movie can see screens from the restaurant and can rent small radios for sound. With more restaurant-quality dishes, customers might feel less enthusiastic about dining behind the wheel. "It's the type of things people like in an outdoor environment like a picnic or block party, very laid back."īut, the new space with its expanded kitchen will also feature at least one major menu upgrade: Beginning next week, after a specialty oven is installed, Coyote Drive-In Lewisville will serve scratch pizzas, made to order with fresh ingredients and in-house mixed dough. "I like to call it 'comfort grill food,'" Winn says. It will sell traditional movie treats like popcorn and candy, as well as burgers, hot dogs and nachos, like its sister location. While Fort Worth's concession area is exclusively open-air, Lewisville features a climate-controlled indoor restaurant with a full-service kitchen. Solomon says the original Coyote Drive-In in Fort Worth was inspired in design by the Katy Trail Ice House, and that outdoorsy, craft beer vibe extends to the new location, with a few major differences. That extends to the restaurant's outdoor patio area you can see the big screens from its picnic tables and Adirondack chairs, and there's a playground with a full jungle gym for children to stretch out in a safe, well-lit, centralized area. "You can have a conversation without disrupting those around you kids can toss a Frisbee if they get restless."Īt Coyote Drive-In, there's freedom to roam. "If you've ever been to a movie-in-the-park, it's a very different experience from a cold, dark indoor theater," says Chief Operations Officer Steve Winn. The Coyote Drive-In bar serves craft beer from local breweries. Want to remark on an awesome scene in the movie you're watching? You're welcome to. Children and dogs on leashes romp while parents relax with a craft beer. That may seem like a difficult, if not impossible, rule to enforce, but Solomon says patrons in Fort Worth and Alabama have seen the unique value of the drive-in experience as a whole and care about being good patrons.Įach Coyote Drive-In screen is surrounded by a patch of grass about 100 feet wide and 50-60 feet deep, where patrons can enjoy spreading out picnic blankets or lawn chairs. With ticket prices so low, Coyote focuses a substantial amount of its attention to concessions and the indoor-outdoor restaurant, much more on that later, and outside food and drink is not allowed. In keeping with tradition, every screening is a double feature - that's two current, full-length feature films - with a 15 minute intermission. General admission tickets are $8 for ages 12 and over, $6 for children 5-11 and free for children under 4 years-old, significantly lower than competing first-run theaters, which tend to average around $11-plus for adults. Small radios are available to rent for a small fee, and stand up speakers are placed under each screen to service a small, surrounding grassy area where you can sit on picnic blankets or in lawn chairs. Don't have a working radio? Want to ride up on your bike? No problem. Sound is broadcast over FM radio frequencies, utilizing modern vehicle technology rather than relying on old-school speaker systems. Once you've bought tickets or redeemed tickets purchased in advance online, you simply follow signs pointing to the correct parking lot. Upon entering the Coyote Drive-In complex, cars queue in one of six lanes that stretch 500 feet from the main road, meaning there is a lot of space for orderly ticket sales. On top of that, Coyote Drive-In Lewisville sits on 35 acres, 10 of which are floodplain. While the surrounding area is certain to continue its lighting-fast growth, the land circumventing the theater is likely to remain relatively undeveloped, or at least less so. That's a major selling point for outdoor theater developers. Six lanes of traffic extend for 500 feet from the main road, ensuring more efficient traffic flow. "We're in a dark area with not a lot of ambient light," he says. Partner Glenn Solomon says the location was ideal for a number of reasons, one being that seemingly remote geography. It is situated in a rapidly developing area - not far, for example, from the massive Nebraska Furniture Mart that opened in 2015 - but once you've turned off the highway, the drive-in is nestled among wide open expanses of rural farmland, feeling very far from civilization - in a good way. The theater itself is located right off of the Sam Rayburn Tollway, a breezy 20-ish minute drive for North Texans who live near North Central Expressway, and even closer for those clustered along the Dallas North Tollway.
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