Summer Quartet Drive-In

Currently listed on Malco’s website as the Summer Quartet Drive-In

I haven’t seen a car on to of a drive-in sign(possibly unique?)!!

The Summer Drive-In is fully digital.

Both of the drive-ins in this neighborhood now have photos and pages of their own.

MOvies playing in 1977 at the Summer 1 “WINTERHAWK” and"WALKING TALL" another crazy booking at a Drive-in. Ever here of Theme night? on Summer 2 one can watch “COACH” and “LAS VEGAS LADY” with Stella Stevens,Wonder where these flicks are today?

OK, the first one was located in the north-east corner of Summer and White Station. The second one is the current location. I assumed they were the same owner/company but from reading here, it looks like two different owners. On the southwest side of that intersection on Summer was a sign saying THAT was the city limits in 1953. The first Holiday Inn was just to the west, before Mendenhall. I can’t believe Holiday Inn didn’t keep it as a museum or something.

Here is a 1948 photo of the earlier drive-in:
http://tinyurl.com/3bluxp

The original Summer drive-in was located at Summer and White Station
where the K-mart used to be. It had a gravel parking lot. At one time that was the eastern boundary of the city limits. My brother worked there during that time. Not sure when it was closed down.

This page from Memphis Magazine says the first Holiday Inn opened in 1952 at 4941 Summer Avenue, just east of Mendenhall. That would be a few blocks west of the older drive-in, and on the other side of Summer Avenue.

The page says that Holiday Inn was converted into a Royal Oaks Motel, then torn down in 1995 and replaced by a funeral home.

The Summer Drive-In that I remember was definitely on the North side of Summer Avenue and East of loop 240. The very first Holiday Inn was in the same area, on the South side of Summer and West of 240. The first three Holiday Inns ever built were this one and two more on Highway 51, one North and one South of Memphis. Mr. Wilson was said to have gotten the idea from the 1940s Bing Crosby movie of the same name. I think all three had been sold and were no longer Holiday Inns by the 1970s. The Fare 4 quadruplex was also nearby, just West of 240 and on the South side of Summer Avenue, backing up to White Station. It was later expanded to a 10-plex. There was also a youth arcade or party center called the “Saturn” or something like that, very close to the Fare 4. If there were two Summer drive-ins as described above, that would explain why I remember hearing about it while a car-less Southwestern student in the early 1960s, whereas others remember it opening in 1966. The area became pretty run-down in the late 70s and early 80s, and some barbecue restaurants were converted to topless bars—but I wouldn’t know anything about that. Other Memphis area drive-ins included the Frayser, the 51 on South Highway 51 in Whitehaven, and one on Lamar Avenue near Getwell or Mendenhall and another on Park Avenue near East Parkway, which I’m still trying to remember the names of. Best wishes.

lostmemory, thanks for a VERY interesting link. I’d never heard of the Summer Avenue Drive-In. You’ll notice on the link (above) that it was partly owned by Kemmons Wilson. He’s much more famous as the creator and owner of the Holiday Inn chain. If I’m not mistaken, one of the first Holiday Inns (if not the very first) was on Summer Avenue not too far from the Drive-In.

Now I’m wondering if there used to be another drive-in in the same neighborhood, that got replaced by this one. The one I remember going to was on the north side of Summer, right around White Station, just west of I-240 (which was still under construction back then). This one seems to be east of I-240.

I’m pretty sure it was operating in the early 1960s. I didn’t have a car then so I couldn’t go there, but I remember seeing ads for it as early as 1963-64. If so, it was only a twin (at most) at the time because I know it was years later that it became briefly a trio and then a quad. In the late 70s/early 80s on Sunday mornings I used to bicycle from the MSU area up Southern to White Station past the Paramount, then down White Station to Summer to the Fare 4, turn around in the Summer Drive-In entryway, then down Summer to Riverside Drive to Beale, make my “ritual circumnavigation of the Orpheum,” and then go back up Beale, Union, and Peabody to MSU; this took about 2 hours. Saw Angie Dickinson, Joan Prather, William Shatner, and Tom Skerritt in “Big Bad Mama” at the Summer. Also Stella Stevens and Stuart Whitman in “Las Vegas Lady” and James Ryan in a South African Martial-Arts movie called “Kill or Be Killed,” which was a cut above the usual “Chop-Opera.” Best wishes.