Beach Drive-In
St. Augustine,
FL
32084
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The Beach Drive-In was opened on March 9, 1950 with Mickey Rooney in “The Big Wheel”. It was operated by George Kanaris. He closed in in 1959 and he took over operating the San Marco Drive-In in January 1960 (it has its own page on Cinema Treasures). The Beach Drive-In had been demolished by 1983.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
The Beach Drive-In theatre opened on March 9th, 1950 and closed in December 1959. Grand opening ad posted.
After checking the newspaper article from the March 8 issue of the St. Augustine Record and Historic Aerials, I believe I found the location of this drive-in. The approximate address is 381 A1A Beach Blvd. St. Augustine, FL 32080. The site is now occupied by Seaside At Anastasia Condos. Verification or confirmation is welcome; if I should be incorrect, please let me know.
A 1960 aerial shows the drive-in intact. By 1983, it had been completely demolished. Although interestingly enough, the land doesn’t appear to have been developed to any great degree by 1983. You can still see remnants of the ramps and outline, albeit barely.
It would be strange that the property was left undeveloped for so long given its location. But I’ve seen odder things.
The screen was wrecked by Hurricane Donna in September 1960 then burned down on Feburary 24, 1962. Speculating that the fire was set deliberately, Elias Kaniaris (who still owned the Beach Drive-In property while running the San Marco Drive-In) offered a $500 reward for the capture of those responsible.