Let’s take a little trip through time, shall we?
We’re going back a century or so, to April 23, 1915, in Las Cruces, N.M., where Theatre de Guadalupe is screening a film called “Bags of Gold.”
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Moving Picture World Magazine said the silent film featured “quite a bit of excitement in the way of fights and dangerous looking falls.”
NEWS: Tesla has officially started construction of Hollywood Supercharger with diner and drive-in theater. https://t.co/A0RxbZlBCH
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) September 28, 2023
The theater had seats for 700 people. But more important, the “automobile entrances and places for 40 or more cars within the theater grounds and in-line position to see the pictures and witness all performances on the stage [are features] of the place that will please car owners,” the Rio Grande Republican reported.
In other words, it was partly a drive-in theater.
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The idea may have sounded strange at the time, but drive-in theaters caught on as more people owned cars and moved to the suburbs.
The number of drive-in movie theaters in the U.S. leaped to 4,151 in 1951 from 155 in 1947 as they became part of American pop culture.
Drive-ins also featured in countless movies and TV shows as the place where teenagers fall in love and psychopaths hunt for victims.
Meanwhile, many Americans were going to drive-in restaurants, where carhops on roller skates brought their orders right up to their vehicles.
Drive-in theaters then largely disappeared over the years. And nowadays the internal combustion engine is gradually declining as more people shift over to electric vehicles.
But unlike gasoline-powered cars, drive-ins have been receiving renewed interest lately. And that’s where Elon Musk comes in.
The Tesla (TSLA) – Get Free Report chief executive has been talking about a particular project since 2018, when he tweeted “gonna put an old school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant at one of the new Tesla Supercharger locations in LA.”
He also talked about having “an outdoor screen that plays a highlight reel of the best scenes in movie history.”
Two years ago Tesla filed a new trademark for its brand under restaurant services.
And then last year the company filed plans with the City of Los Angeles to construct a 28-stall Supercharger and restaurant building at 7001 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.
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“Our Tesla futuristic diner (Grease meets The Jetsons with Supercharging) in LA should be ready later this year,” Musk said on Aug. 5 on X, formerly Twitter, which he owns.
Now Drive Tesla Canada reported on Sept. 28 that construction has begun building Musk’s retrovision.
The plans described a semicircular two-story diner with 29 Supercharger stalls and two movie theater screens, so you and your car can recharge at the same time.
I wonder what kind of hotel we would design if we did so.
Our Tesla futuristic diner (Grease meets The Jetsons with Supercharging) in LA should be ready later this year.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2023
The second floor will be mostly outdoor seating and include a 77-seat theater sitting area with a rooftop view of two 45-foot tall LED movie screens at the north and west ends of the parking lot
There also appears to be a carhop area. The diner will be open 24 hours and the movies will run between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m.
“This is epic!!!!” Cole Grinde posted on X.
“This place is going to be PACKED!!! Even has a line down the street in the rendering,” Nick Jenkins said.
Mark Gabryjelski tweeted that “this strategy (provide something interesting for folks while they charge) is what companies (gas stations with stores/restaurants) need to highlight as we transition.”
“Eventually, charging will be much faster,” he said, “BUT….create a reason to stay (& spend more in our establishment)…..”
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