When Lauren McChesney handed her ticket to Matt McClanahan at a drive-in theater in 2018, neither expected that simple transaction would lead to a million-dollar love story and the rescue of cinema history. Their romance blossomed over shared road trips visiting both operational and abandoned drive-ins across the country, originally planning to build their own theater until they learned that Shankweiler’s Drive-In—the world’s oldest operating drive-in from 1934—was about to be sold to developers. McClanahan, who had grown up attending Shankweiler’s, had the perfect lightbulb moment: “Why are we spending so much time trying to build one when there’s one literally down the road from our house that’s for sale and is like the most important drive-in?”
The couple pooled their savings and secured a $1 million loan to purchase Pennsylvania’s first drive-in in 2022, with McChesney even leaving her stable corporate healthcare job for this leap of faith. Now they operate one of only 283 remaining drive-ins in America, down from over 4,000 in the 1950s, hosting everything from summer blockbusters to Valentine’s Day screenings of “The Notebook.” Their success story came full circle when they got engaged in August, with McChesney joking that they kept doing other things instead of getting married, “like starting businesses and buying movie theaters.” Their love story proves that sometimes the best relationships are built on shared dreams, calculated risks, and the magic of movies under the stars.
