QUEENS, N.Y. - Like other restaurants in the city buffeted by the coronavirus crisis, the Bel-Aire diner in Astoria, Queens has had to drastically cut back. Its kitchen is open only for pick-up and delivery orders.
But its owners are now expanding, by thinking outside the box – and outside the diner.
Their solution is very mid-20th Century: They’ve opened a drive-in movie theater, in the parking lot.
"We just got together we came up with the idea. The first night do it on the fly. We saw how it went we had our list of people that RSVP’d," said the diner’s event coordinator, Victoria Philios.
The response has been far greater than anyone anticipated. After a few free screenings, the diner now has showings at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. several nights a week.
Initially, the father of the diner’s owner was skeptical. He had run the place until a few years ago.
"We got a little push back in the beginning. He's a little bit ‘old school.’ He sat us down pros, cons, ‘Do you think it’s going to work? I trust you,’" said co-owner Kalergis "Kal" Dellaportas.
The movies are shown on a portable, oversized screen in the parking lot. People tune in on their car radios to follow along. Forty tickets are sold for each screening, and they sell out within minutes.
With traditional movie theaters and other entertainment destinations closed because of the pandemic, the drive-in’s promise of dinner and a movie provides the perfect get-away for quarantine-weary New Yorkers desperate to get out of the house.
"I've been doing the same thing pretty much every day: I go to the park, work out, come home, I cook. This is a little something different,” said one ticket buyer.
"I think it’s really exciting considering the situation," said another.
Others credit the drive in's success to its combination of novelty and nostalgia.
"I’m now putting in my vehicle information so they can bring the food to the vehicle," one patron said.
Concessions are where the diner makes money. The owners say ticket sales only cover the cost of putting on the shows, which feature a mix of older films like the “Princess Bride,” not first-run films.
"We saw this as an opportunity to see a nice movie. We've never been to a drive in," said another ticket-buyer, Korey Johnson.
The owners of the Bel-Aire are not the only ones thinking out of the box. Other pop-up drive-ins are opening in the city.
The Skyline will operate in a parking lot in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Catholic Charities of Staten Island is planning a drive in at the Mount Loretto nature preserve. In July, organizers of the Bronx Night Market will debut the Uptown Drive-In, showing films in a Yankee Stadium parking lot.