Burlingame, CA - Here's the old Burlingame Drive-in Theater in where else but Burlingame CA. The Burlingame was built in 1964 and opened in summer of 1965. According to Cinema Treasures, the drive-in was originally built as a two-screener with one screen named the Burlingame and the other the Peninsula.
Burlingame Drive-in Theater (Demolished)
Burlingame, CA Photo by RoadsidePeek.com
Out along the edge of San Francisco Bay, the Burlingame Drive-In Theatre offered outdoor movies with airplanes passing nearby and the water just beyond the screens. This was not a little neighborhood drive-in tucked behind a shopping center. The twin fields spread across a huge bayside property with room for nearly 2,000 cars.
The Burlingame was still open for business, though recent rumors state
that this drive-in will soon be closed and forgotten.
The theater opened on June 23, 1965, although it began with two names. The north field was called the Burlingame Drive-In and held around 900 cars, while the south field faced the bay as the Peninsula Drive-In with room for about 1,000. Two screens, two identities, and one enormous lot. Choosing a movie also meant making sure everyone followed the signs to the correct side.
Imagine seeing a line up of cars waiting to enter the drive-in theater to see a movie or two back in the day
Burlingame Drive-in Theater screen tower
Burlingame, CA Photo by RoadsidePeek.com
Syufy Enterprises built the complex on a man-made peninsula created by filling part of the bay during the mid-1960s. The fill project later became part of a much larger environmental controversy, but for moviegoers it produced a wide stretch of land with plenty of room for cars, screens, ticket booths, and a snack bar.
The most interesting part sat halfway between the two original screens. Theater architect Vincent G. Raney designed a circular concession and projection building topped by a low dome. From there, projection booths could serve both fields while moviegoers converged on the same central snack bar. Popcorn lines from two theaters meeting beneath one roof must have made intermission interesting.
Burlingame Drive-in Theater ticket booth
Burlingame, CA Photo by RoadsidePeek.com
The dome and central layout became something of a Syufy family resemblance. Similar ideas appeared at the Coliseum Drive-In in Oakland and the Geneva Drive-In near Daly City. Old interior photographs of the three theaters can look surprisingly alike, especially when the circular snack bars and projection areas are involved.
In November 1973, two more screens were added and the separate Burlingame and Peninsula identities gave way to one unified name. The Burlingame Drive-In had become a four-screen outdoor multiplex. More screens meant more choices, although it also increased the chance that an action scene from the neighboring field might become more entertaining than the movie playing through the windshield.
The concession stand
Burlingame, CA Photo by RoadsidePeek.com
For decades, the four towers rose above the bayside lot as airplanes approached nearby San Francisco International Airport. Movie sound came from speakers hanging on car windows, food came from beneath the central dome, and the glow from several screens spread across the parked rows after dark. It was a pretty unusual place to catch a double feature.
Check out the snack bar here on the left with its dome architecture
The Burlingame showed its final movies on September 10, 2001. By early 2002, the screens, domed concession building, ticket booths, entrance marquee, and nearly four decades of drive-in history had been cleared from the peninsula.
The drive-in closed down for business in 2001. Unfortunately, the drive-in shut down for good and was bulldozed in 2002.
UPDATE: The Burlingame was shut down in 2001 and was demolished a couple of years later. 05-06
UPDATE: The former drive-in property has been redeveloped with the Bay Landing Hotel and airport parking facilities. In October 2022, the Burlingame Historical Society installed a permanent marker near Airport and Anza boulevards so the old theater would not disappear completely from the landscape. 09-26
Burlingame Drive-in Theater (Demolished)
Burlingame Drive-in Theater screen tower
Burlingame Drive-in Theater ticket booth
The concession stand
