VINELAND — Three hours before showtime at the state's only drive-in movie theater, Sam Boss is in charge.
"Yes, sir," the lanky long-haired college student replies to every question as he collects trash left over from the previous night’s movies.
It’s the usual drive-in detritus: plastic cups, straws and fast food wrappers, maybe some CSI-worthy trace amounts of the stir-fry asparagus or edamame from the Delsea Drive-In’s not-so-ordinary snack bar.
Boss’ boss is a fast-talking, balding pediatrician — not exactly the most likely candidate to rescue the Vineland drive-in from weed-overgrown oblivion.
The Delsea Drive-In was built in 1949, 16 years after Richard Hollingshead, a salesman for his father’s Whiz Auto Products Co., and three partners opened the Automobile Drive-In in Pennsauken (the location is often incorrectly given as Camden).
Admission was 25 cents per car, plus 25 cents per person. There was a playground and sound blared from a speaker atop the concession stand.
Drive-ins soon started marching across the Jersey landscape. The Somerville Drive-In in Branchburg. The Amboys Drive-In in Sayreville. The Turnpike Drive-In in East Brunswick. The Shore Drive-In in Collingwood Park. The Circus Drive-In in Hammonton. The Paramus Drive-In in Paramus. The Roosevelt Drive-In in Jersey City. The Wildwood Twin Drive-In in Rio Grande. The Bay Drive-In in Toms River. By 1970, there were nearly 50 drive-ins across the state. The Newark Drive-in, with room for nearly 2,500 cars, was the nation’s fifth largest.
But one by one they disappeared, slowly killed off by VCRs, cable, DVDs and escalating land values. In 1956, there were an estimated 7,000 drive-ins in the U.S. Today, there are about 400, most in the south and southwest.
And one in New Jersey.
The Delsea Drive-In may not exactly feel like the drive-in of your youth. There is no flourescent-lit, bug-beseiged, open-air snack bar; the Delsea’s is enclosed, and the menu — nachos, burgers and pizza to shrimp kababs, spring rolls, churros and pierogies — is longer than those at most restaurants.
There are no in-car speakers; you tune in the sound on your car radio.
But everything else is in place: the gently-sloped parking spaces; the endless sneak previews, and enough lawn chairs to fill a Jersey beach.
"People ask, do you have an afternoon show?" says the wise-cracking DeLeonardis. "If it gets that dark that early, I’m worried about other things."
There are always two movies a night at each screen. The bigger screen is 100 feet wide; there is space for 425 cars. The smaller one is 60 feet wide, with space for 200 cars. The latter was built in 2008, the 75th anniversary of the Automobile Drive-In.
In July, DeLeonardis installed a double-array of 218 Sunny Boy solar panels, making the Delsea the first drive-in anywhere, according to DeLeonardis, to install solar panels. His monthly electric bill is $1,400; he expects the panels to eventually drop that to $140. Electricity generated by the panels during the day goes into the local grid and then is used to provide power to the drive-in at night.
His wife, Jude, a registered nurse, was initially skeptical about his drive-in dreams; now she can be found weekend nights working the snack bar. She put the edamame, stir-fry asparagus, wraps and other healthy choices on the menu. All three of their 17-year-old triplets — John Jr., Rachel and Sarah — work here.
"She’s the realist, I’m the dreamer," DeLeonardis says of his wife.
DRIVE-IN DAY-TO-DAY
"Doc" may be a dreamer, but he’s no pushover when it comes to the drive-in’s many rules. No outside food or drink, unless you buy an Outside Food Permit for $7. No pets. No vans, trucks or SUVs in the first five rows. And definitely no stashing anyone in the trunk.
Earlier this summer, a mother tried sneaking in her two kids. She was told either she would have to pay for them, or leave.
"You can’t do that," she protested.
DeLeonardis’ reply: "Call the cops: I’m going back inside to work."
Admission is $8; for kids 3 to 11, it’s $3. Seniors often ask for a discount. The pediatrician’s reply: Where can you see two movies these days for eight bucks?
"You give people a good deal, they ask for a better one," he says. "You give them a better deal, they want it for free. You give it to them for free, they want you to pay them to be here."
A staff of 25 makes the drive-in go. Is DeLeonardis making money? "The accountant says we’re not losing as much money as the year before," he says with a smile.
The life of a drive-in theater mogul is not so glamorous. One night, DeLeonardis ran out of ice, forcing a run to a nearby Wawa for 40 bags. This night — with "The Smurfs" and "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" on the bigger screen and "The Change-Up’’ and "Friends with Benefits" on the smaller one — he runs out of burgers.
A small city is gathering in the enveloping darkness — lovestruck teens and a few seniors and suburban moms and dads with their kids and maybe the next door neighbor’s kids, too. Friends Scott and Bernadette Rhoad and Chee and Alicia Yip, both of Galloway, are here with their families. They have a system: one of their cars is parked at the larger screen, the other at the smaller screen. Everyone — the Rhoads and their two children, the Yips and their three children — will watch "The Change-Up" on the smaller screen, then "the boys" will scoot over to the bigger screen and watch "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." Everyone gets their two movies, only just not on the same screen.
"We’ve been here before," Chee Yip said, smiling.
The drive-in’s appeal? "Hanging out with the family," Alicia Yip says. "It’s hard to find something everyone likes."
"And you don’t have to be quiet; it’s not ‘shhhh,’" her husband added.
Twenty minutes later, the guy known as "Doc" returns from BJs with nine dozen burgers.
There are 37 people on line outside the snack bar.
A pickup truck backs into a parking spot next to the projection booth.
Lawn chairs are re-arranged one last time.
Kids fight for position in the back seats of cars.
A perfect blue Technicolor sky fades to deep rich purple and then black.
The show at New Jersey’s only drive-in movie theater is about to begin.