Earlville drive-in theater owner and movie fans have to wait

The phone started ringing at the Route 34 Drive-in in Earlville around St. Patrick’s Day, right when crowds seen at beaches and parks in Chicago and bars statewide prompted the governor to closed many recreational sites and Illinois State Parks.

“They closed the beaches and the golf courses and the movie theaters,” said Ron Magnoni, owner of the Route 34 Drive-In, one of the last of its kind anywhere near the western suburbs and the only one in La Salle County.

When people realized they were losing recreation area access and they couldn’t go to the indoor theater due to coronavirus precautions, they thought maybe they could go to the drive-in and practice social distancing.

“People want to do anything,” he said.

Magnoni, of Oglesby, said the calls started coming two weeks before his normal opening date, and he let people know the social-distancing rules he would have to put into place would not be enjoyable for people or in any way profitable for him.

He said at one point, he thought he might be allowed to let no more than 10 cars in, and he’d have to close the concession stand – and lock the bathrooms. “I wasn’t going to do that to people,” he said.

Magnoni said there was only one good thing for his business, financially, about the mid-March orders from the governor.

“If this would have been one week later that they closed the state, I would have had 3,000 pounds of food going to waste,” he said.

He said things could be complicated for theaters “when they finally let us open. The film companies pulled all of their movies.”

He says the new movies won’t start arriving to first-run theaters like his until all or almost all theaters in the United States reopen. Some movies scheduled for midsummer won’t arrive, because some, like the Marvel movies have to be shown in order, as they’re a series (“Black Widow” comes next, he said).

Disney released some of its films for people to pay for from home. A “Minions” movie was moved to next year and a Pixar film moved to November.

He’ll still have some entertaining films, but when the theaters reopen, people might be seeing movies that came out last fall or this winter.

Magnoni thinks some of the big theater chains are in big trouble financially, and this will be an historically tough year for him.

“Last year was my best year, and this is going to be my worst,” he predicted. He had good crowds last summer after the Cascade drive-in closed in West Chicago, and the cars from the suburbs lined up for the movies on the west side of Earlville.

“I’ve been through a lot of bad things, but nothing like this,” he said, noting it was tough to buy a $70,000 digital projector when Hollywood stopped providing actual film. He says $70,000 was the same amount he paid to buy the theater in 1994.

Magnoni is by no means the only theater owner going through a tough time. At the historic Apollo Theater in Princeton, owners Jay and Lara Schneider got creative to keep afloat during the closing of their business. The couple has created “Essential Popcorn Fridays” selling giant, four-bucket-sized bags of popcorn for just $20.

Lara Schneider said one of their employees starts popping about 9 a.m. and pops continuously until pickup starts about 3 p.m. They also can deliver.