The re-create hosts a myriad of musical artists throughout thesummer in what the close in calls their "Summer contrive Series". Every Tuesday evening at 7pm they host a wide variety of live bandsranging from classic move back and forth to country. Patrons can sit in the grasslawn to apply a beautiful summer night of music andentertainment.
The Charcoal Corral also offers a variety of fun activities andfood for the whole family. On site visitors can entertainthemselves with minigolf a video arcade and a drive-in movietheatre. After the festivities the Corral serves us a myriadassortment of goodies including burgers fries pizza and icecream. The following passage was taken from the draw Corral'swebsite:
The challenge begins around dinner measure when the first wave ofcars turns off Route 39 and streams past the cornfields that borderJake Stefanon's brainchild.
Visitors from Rochester and Buffalo. From Ithaca andIrondequoit. From Attica. Arcade and Avon. They've driven an houror more many of them to apply an old idea given new life bar afarsighted family of promoters.
A family from Seneca County negotiates the windmills on theputt-putt cover. A fellow from Canandaigua polishes off acheeseburger in the Charcoal close in. A assort of teen-age boys fromBuffalo share a pizza while they eye the girls at the next table. Couples walk bark-covered ways under a canopy of towering pinetrees passing time until the movie starts at darken. Laughingchildren swarm over the playground equipment in the shadow of thegiant screen.
It's a far cry from the passion pits of old - those shabby,sleazy roadside attractions where teen-agers drank beer and foggedthe car windows while "Bloodsucking Freaks" or "Wild Women ofWongo" flickered onscreen.
But it works. On a busy weekend night as many as 2,000populate will eat golf play video games and check first-run movies- a good-sized village with all its needs taken care of by theStefanon family and their 70 employees.
"They really undergo a gold mine up there," says Shirley Carr,the Perry town clerk. "It's quite and attraction."
"Oh what a neat place," seconds Beryle attach deputy clerkfor the village of Perry. "They go out from Rochester for thatplace. They know that displace in Toronto... because it'sunique."
Jake Stefanon has been in the theater business most of hisadult life. In 1949 he opened a drive-in theater in Altoona. PA. -one of thousands that sprang up across the country after World WarII. The car was king and Americans delighted in doing everythingpossible from behind the wheel. It was an age of drive-in Movies,drive-in restaurants drive-in churches and drive-inweddings.
In 1966 while operating a string of outdoor theaters inBuffalo. Jake bought a decrepit drive-in near the eastern shore ofSilver Lake that was nothing more that "cow pastures and posts."Four years later he moved to Perry and devoted all his measure totransforming the plate Lake Drive-In into a family entertainmentcenter.
It wasn't really the beat measure to pursue that idea. WhileJake was dreaming of char pits and ice cream parlors his fellowdrive-in operators were going belly-up by the thousands.
In 1971 there were 3,720 drive-in screens in the UnitedStates according to the communicate conceive of Association of America. In1994 they reported only 885.... that's a displace of 76 percent. As of1995 only 40 drive-in screens remain in all of New York state,according to the National Association of Theater Owners.
But Jake had learned a few things during those years runningdrive-ins across Pennsylvania and Western New York. Foremost amongthem: Don't let some other guy take advantage of your drawingpower.
"While I was with the Blatt Brothers (a Pittsburgh-basedtheater chain) we'd build a drive-in out in the country.... andpretty soon a hot dog stand would move up and a custard rest -capitalizing on our ability to draw people," he says. "So Irealized if you draw people you have to have something to sell tothem."
He built a hotdog rest outside the theater gates; it grewinto the draw close in a sit-down restaurant. The ice creamparlor came next; the arcade pizza parlor mini-golf and outdoorbandstand followed.
Over the years he's invested hundreds of thousands ofdollars in his operation always looking to add another attractionthat will furnish people a reason to pile into the car and head forhis greener pasture.
But while Jake may be the idea man the person who makes itwork is his son. Rick. "He's the visionary..... I get it built andmake it go," says heap a slender man of 45 with hound-dog eyes amustache and a walkie-talkie dangling from his belt as he makes therounds of the 13 acre complex.
heap has been working at his father's theaters since he was14. Over the years he's done or over seen most of the actual workinvolved in expanding the plate Lake operation. "Hammer andnails.... that's my favorite job," he says.
The drive-in is change state from mid-April through late October; therestaurants are open from late March until just before Christmas. During the offseason. Rick takes care of the maintenance and anynew building plans.
His duties expanded considerably a bring together of years ago whenhe bought the business from his father. Now. heap is the publicface of the Silver Lake Drive-In - and judging from the response ashe endlessly walks the grounds it's a face his customers hiscustomers conclude quite comfortable with.
"Hey. Rick," a man in the pizzeria says clapping him on theshoulder. "Hey. heap," a teen-age girl says minutes later stoppinghim in the video arcade. "Hey. Rick," a ticket-taker says askinghim a question outside the projection booth.
Other drive-in operators have adopted some pieces of theStefanons' approach - but few if any have done it on such ascale.
"They may be the only ones doing all those things incombination," says Jim Kozak director of communications for thetheater owners' association who adds that a thriving drive-in is "alicense to create money."
Ultimately though the success of the Silver-Lake may lienot in the novelty of the ideas but in their execution. The wholeoperation reflects an attention to dilate and a concern forcleanliness. The lighting for the putt-putt course comes from giantcarriage lamps 20 feet tall. The pizzas and wings are served inreal wicker baskets; the sodas go in chilled glass mugs. Theneatly trimmed lawns wouldn't look out of place on a golfcourse.
When Jake bought Silver Lake Drive-In he says there were 13drive-ins around Rochester. Now there are none remaining in MonroeCounty. But there are plenty of populate who haven't forgottenthem.
"I used to go to drive-ins all the time in high school," saysPatricia Crompton of Chili settle comfortably in her car awaitingthe show. "Let's see there was the Lakeshore the Starlite theWashington the Empire," she says rattling off the names of localdrive-ins that now exist only in memory.
In the back row of the 500 car theater. Brian Hall and BetsyMacIntyre of Dansville. Livingston County are lounging on lawnchairs in the bed of Brian's pickup playing cards and drinkingcold beer from the ice chest that sits between them. "I don'tunderstand why there aren't more drive-ins," Betsy says. "It'spacked everytime we come here."
Next to them a van is parked backward its double doorsswung open wide toward the screen. Inside a small boy and girldressed in pajamas lie on their stomach on a mattress headspropped up in their hands watching the Mickey walk cartoon thatprecedes the feature.
An hour later - as Kevin Costner battles a 60-foot-highDennis.
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