Bellevue Drive-In

DavidZornig on March 14, 2018 at 4:22 pm

Photo added credit Peoria Public Library.

vajobguy on June 19, 2017 at 11:02 pm

This was my first job, I think I was 15. I made .95 cents an hour cleaning the lot. $1.05 working inside the concession stand. I made about $18 a week. However— we always checked the fences first, money would blow out of customer’s hands and collect on the chain link fence. That was good for about $25 per week.

We had to climb a rickety wooden ladder to change the lights on top of the screen. The lights bulbs were huge! They were 1000 watt incandescent light bulbs.
after we replaced them, we would drop the bad bulbs from the top of the screen onto the concrete, only the metal base was left and a lot of glass powder. Great first job.

Over the years as I look back, the older lady who ran the place named “Mimi” was always over the top. Nice lady, but she drove a new Cadillac and wore mink coats to collect the money at the front gate. (she kept a 38 in her purse) In the concession stand, even though we had cash registers we were not allowed ring up the total on the machines. It was always in our head! Mimi always took the cash deposits to the bank! Huummm. I guess when your 15 you don’t realize what’s going on.

Nice place, a lot of kids from the 1960’s owe their existence to the back lot of that drive-in.

But I wouldn' trade the experience for anything. Even the burnz-O-Matic car heaters in the winter were a blast. Almost literally. We had one catch on fire with about 150 bottles of butane in the enclosed heater room. Someone was watching out for a stupid 15-year-old!

omalley on October 20, 2010 at 1:49 pm

I was captain of ushers at Bellevue Drive-In during my high school days in 1956-57. While at work one evening, a fellow usher and I decided to put our names up on the Hwy. 116 Marquee sign. Our purpose was to take a quick photo to submit to our high school yearbook. The sign read, “Bill O'Malley and Jerry White star in, The Life of Elvis Presley.” At work a month later, a girl concession worker showed the yearbook w/ picture to my boss Mr. Szold. (I was worried and thought I would be fired).
As it turned out Mr. Szold thanked me for my work done and complimented me on the publicity given to the Bellevue Drive-In.

scottfavareille on December 19, 2007 at 11:02 am

The DVD of Blood Feast has both Dave Friedman & Herschell Gordon Lewis (producer & director of Blood Feast) talking about their “partnership” with Kohlberg on this film & two others. After that partnership dissolved, Friedman would partner with the late Dan Sonney & co-found the Pussycat Theaters chain of “adult movie houses”