drive-in

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

drive-in (not comparable)

1. (US, of an establishment) Providing service to patrons who remain in their automobiles.

   drive-in bank; drive-in church; drive-in funeral parlor

• drive-through

drive-in (plural drive-ins)

1. (US, Australia) 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.
   • 1975, David Manning White, Popular Culture, page 154,

     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.

   • 2000, Mary Alampi, Dun & Bradstreet/Gale Group Industry Handbook, page 26,

     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.

   • 2000, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000 Year Book Australia, page 346,

     At the end of June 1997, there were 325 cinema sites and 28 drive-in sites in Australia.

2. (US) A drive-through restaurant where patrons remain in their vehicles and order food and beverages via a speaker phone; the meal is delivered to one's vehicle by a carhop.

   The teen-agers 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,

     At the retarded children′s school, the youngsters occasionally got hamburgers for lunch from a drive-in chain. […] he cruised the city looking for drive-ins where he wasn′t known.

   • 1986, Business Week, Issues 2967-2978, page 136,

     Even before franchising genius Ray A. Kroc approached Mac and Dick McDonald to become the licensing agent for their small San Bernadino (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.

   • 2006, Reid Duffy, Reid Duffy's Guide to Indiana's Favorite Restaurants: With a Recipe Sampler, page 135,

     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.

• (outdoor cinema): drive-in cinema, drive-in movie, drive-in theater/drive-in theatre
• (drive-through restaurant): drive-in restaurant, drive-through

• car hop

• Vidrine, diviner

drive-in m (plural drive-ins)

1. drive-in (an outdoor cinema)