Drive-in and diner coming to Central Virginia

MONETA — A huge movie screen was stretched out in a clearing off White House Road on Wednesday, a few miles from Smith Mountain Lake.

By Labor Day, it could display the first drive-in movie the Central Virginia area has seen in more than two decades.

The 26-by-61-foot screen, which workers expect to erect today, is one element in a two-part “pipe dream” about to become reality for lake resident Bob Craig.

The other part —a 1950s-style diner glistening in the afternoon sun — was lowered onto a foundation just yards away on Wednesday.

Craig is developing the eight-acre site into the Mayberry Drive-In and Diner, a project he has worked on for the last two years.

A film enthusiast, Craig grew up at a Roanoke drive-in, where his father ran the projector.

Along with the free movies, he enjoyed the memories — though they were fleeting.

“I was the guy banging on trunks (of cars) telling people to leave,” Craig said with a chuckle.

Years later, he came up with the idea to run a drive-in of his own.

He approached George Aznavorian, the architect of the Downtown Moneta mixed-use development now taking shape a mile away on Virginia 122.

Aznavorian owns the land and agreed to lease the site, and last year Bedford County officials approved a special-use permit, giving the project the green light.

Craig and his crew hauled the 10-year-old diner from Chesapeake on Tuesday. Craig said he found the building, which three months ago still was operating as a diner, for sale on Ebay.

Several other small buildings, which will hold projectors, ticket booths and concessions, also are now on the site. Public water and sewer serves the property — which holds eight gravel rows facing White House Road, where up to 200 vehicles can park to face the big screen.

This would be the first drive-in theater in the area in more than 20 years. The last one, the Fort Drive-In on Timberlake Road in Lynchburg, closed in the mid-1980s and now is the site of an apartment complex.

Craig said the diner would be open seven days a week year-round, but the drive-in would be open probably four days a week from spring to November. Movies would start after dark and run to 11:30 p.m. or 1:30 a.m., according to season.

Family movies with PG or PG-13 ratings are expected to play, he said, with “first-runs” from studios and classics. Appropriately, he intends to show the 1991 film, “What About Bob?” to an audience familiar with the movie’s Smith Mountain Lake backdrop.

“We might do what they call a theme night,” Craig said, adding that it could include bike rallies, the beach or even religious films for church groups.

Ron Miller of Huddleston came to the site Wednesday to watch the placement of the diner. Excited about the project, he said he plans to regularly attend.

“I grew up with drive-ins,” said Miller, a Connecticut native. “When you have kids, especially, it’s a cheap, fun night.”

His daughter, Lisa Heath of Moneta, also plans to come with her two children.

“This will be easier and a lot more fun,” she said of the drive-in experience. “My daughter’s 4, so it will be her first time.”