DADE CITY, Fla. — The sun has gone down in Dade City.
And light is leaving the sky.
Just in time for Joy-Lan Drive-in to fire up its first feature of the night. This mainstay of Dade City is celebrating 75 years of waiting for the dark.
“So I started my first job in the box office,” said Chip Sawyer, who had to get promoted to popcorn, and now heads the company running the drive-in 15 years later.
Drive-in movies may have peaked in the mid-20th century, but they still maintain a presence in the Tampa Bay area.
And they got a shot of popularity during the pandemic, as a naturally distanced group event.
All of this is the legacy of Sawyer’s grandfather, Harold Spears.
“He was a stern boss, but he was still a grandfather,” said Sawyer. “I could always see him kind of look at me, kind of a bit proud so that was fun.”
Spears started there in the 1950s and stayed until he passed away in 2017.
In that time, some things have changed.
“Everybody thinks it’s the crazy silver film reel. But now we’re in the 21st century. Now we get digital files,” said Aiden Kender, who runs the projection room.
Satellite downloads come to a server, and Kender loads them into the projection machine.
And if the movies are pre-digital age, they show in what looks like a zip drive.
“The whole movie’s right in there,” said Kender.
Technical advances keep the retro attraction up and running.
And a grandfather’s lessons keep customers coming back.
“He knew what was right and what was wrong as far as drive-ins and how to treat people,” said Sawyer. “And how to treat customers. We still use a lot of that philosophy today.”
It’s a philosophy Sawyer believes will have customers coming in for another 75 years.
Joy-Lan Drive-in is located on U.S. Highway 301 in Dade City.
It shows first-run movies and family classics Wednesday through Saturday nights. And first thing Sunday morning, there is a swap shop from 5 a.m. to 12 p.m.
