drive-in

Providing service to patrons who remain in their automobiles and partake while parked.

drive-in church; drive-in funeral parlor

motel; motor inn

An outdoor cinema where movies are projected onto a large screen and patrons watch from inside their vehicles, listening either by a speaker or a designated radio frequency.

Owners and sponsors of the drive-ins feel that in three-quarters of their patrons they have tapped a practically prehistoric strain of human—the hitherto non-movie-goer.

This fact may seem surprising since the major movie studios, reluctant to risk cheapening their images by releasing first-run films to drive-ins, made only older movies affordable to drive-in operators.

A restaurant where patrons remain in their vehicles to consume their meals; the meal may be ordered and delivered to one's vehicle by a carhop waiter; or may require patrons to use a service counter. The cars in the parking lot serve as the

The teenagers went down to the drive-in to order some hamburgers and fries.

1965 May 7, Don Moser, The nightmare of life with Billy, LIFE, page 101,

A drive-through restaurant where patrons remain in their vehicles and order food and beverages via a speaker phone; the meal is delivered by a service window accessible by car.

Even before franchising genius Ray A. Kroc approached Mac and Dick McDonald to become the licensing agent for their small San Bernardino (Calif.) restaurant, scores of drive-in operators had begun copying McDonald′s speedy burger-fries-and-shake menus. Love contends that Kroc′s success came largely from his commitment to automating the preparation of drive-in meals.

For during the fabled Indiana blizzard of ′78, Tom found himself trapped inside the kitchen of the drive-in for three days before his family, and—more to the point—his customers, could reach him.