The premiere Toledo-area drive-in at one time. Always clean, and oriented towards families. Very good concession stand and the projection was the best in town. Unfortunately…one of the ugliest strip malls you’ve ever seen and a massive, crappy trailer park now squat on the site. A shame.
As a life-long citizen of Maumee, I and others petitioned the city not to allow Redstone to tear down the Maumee Drive-In that formerly occupied this spot. Having been built in 1941, it certainly had attained historical status, but nope: they were all for having Redstone rip it down (these are the same people that won’t let you nail up a board unless you buy a $100 permit). So of course the new cinemas went up, and they were overpriced and underpopulated and they went belly up, with a megachurch scam occupying it now…instead of a restored drive-in that could have proved to be a tourist attraction for the city. Typical for Maumee.
Too bad they gutted the inside and made it smaller. I grew up going to this theater in the early 70s—never missed a Saturday matinee as a kid. Mrs. Steiffert was the manager—super nice (the people that run it now? Rude). Whatever character the theater had back then—the beautiful oak paneled lobby, the stone inset drinking fountain, the wrought iron staircase to the upstairs bathrooms, that huge purple neon clock, the outside ticket booth, the massive wooden doors to the theater—were all ripped out when the city “improved” the theater. Being inside it is like being inside any new anonymous theater now. Pointless. But then again, the city of Maumee never listens to its citizens. As for the outside renovation, the metal panels are rusting and the paint is faded, and no one is doing anything about it. Typical for a government-owned entity. Going there is zero fun.
I grew up at this drive-in. In the late sixties and early seventies, it was kept fairly nice, but the owners let it slide by the eighties (really run-down by its closure in ‘86) Housing developments didn’t help (owners were constantly complaining about being able to see the R-rated movies on the main screen that faced their backyards), while the city of Maumee, typically, didn’t do anything to help. Considering the historical nature of the building, they shouldn’t have let National Amusements tear it down, but the city didn’t care (it could have been a double-whammy tourist attraction, with the town’s restored indoor theatre). And now, the site has one of those clip-joint “megachurch” scams occupying it. A shame.
It’s now a lame banquet hall.
http://clazel.com/
The premiere Toledo-area drive-in at one time. Always clean, and oriented towards families. Very good concession stand and the projection was the best in town. Unfortunately…one of the ugliest strip malls you’ve ever seen and a massive, crappy trailer park now squat on the site. A shame.
As a life-long citizen of Maumee, I and others petitioned the city not to allow Redstone to tear down the Maumee Drive-In that formerly occupied this spot. Having been built in 1941, it certainly had attained historical status, but nope: they were all for having Redstone rip it down (these are the same people that won’t let you nail up a board unless you buy a $100 permit). So of course the new cinemas went up, and they were overpriced and underpopulated and they went belly up, with a megachurch scam occupying it now…instead of a restored drive-in that could have proved to be a tourist attraction for the city. Typical for Maumee.
Too bad they gutted the inside and made it smaller. I grew up going to this theater in the early 70s—never missed a Saturday matinee as a kid. Mrs. Steiffert was the manager—super nice (the people that run it now? Rude). Whatever character the theater had back then—the beautiful oak paneled lobby, the stone inset drinking fountain, the wrought iron staircase to the upstairs bathrooms, that huge purple neon clock, the outside ticket booth, the massive wooden doors to the theater—were all ripped out when the city “improved” the theater. Being inside it is like being inside any new anonymous theater now. Pointless. But then again, the city of Maumee never listens to its citizens. As for the outside renovation, the metal panels are rusting and the paint is faded, and no one is doing anything about it. Typical for a government-owned entity. Going there is zero fun.
I grew up at this drive-in. In the late sixties and early seventies, it was kept fairly nice, but the owners let it slide by the eighties (really run-down by its closure in ‘86) Housing developments didn’t help (owners were constantly complaining about being able to see the R-rated movies on the main screen that faced their backyards), while the city of Maumee, typically, didn’t do anything to help. Considering the historical nature of the building, they shouldn’t have let National Amusements tear it down, but the city didn’t care (it could have been a double-whammy tourist attraction, with the town’s restored indoor theatre). And now, the site has one of those clip-joint “megachurch” scams occupying it. A shame.