Published May 23. 2026 06:07AM<\/p>\n
Matthew McClanahan and Lauren McChesney, owners of Shankweiler\u2019s Drive-In Theatre, have announced the historic theater has been voted Number 1 in USA Today 10Best Readers\u2019 Choice \u201cBest Drive-In Theater\u201d award for 2026.<\/p>\n
The drive-in placed 2nd place in 2025, and 5th in 2024\u2019s for this widely publicized contest, contending with fierce competition from across the country, including five fellow Pennsylvania drive-ins.<\/p>\n
Shankweiler\u2019s Drive-In Theatre originally opened on April 15, 1934. It holds a Guinness World Record as the oldest continuously-operating drive-in theater in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis win is unexpected since we were up against some really amazing competition,\u201d says McClanahan. \u201cWe are so incredibly grateful to all of our customers, friends, and drive-in enthusiasts for their support. We will work very hard this season to live up to this award!\u201d<\/p>\n
Shankweiler\u2019s has received several accolades over the past year, including being named \u201cBest Drive-In\u201d by Lehigh Valley Style, one of the \u201cTop 21 Coolest Theaters\u201d in the world by Variety Magazine, one of the \u201c15 Best Drive-Ins\u201d by Fodors Travel, and one of the top 10 \u201cBest Drive-In Theaters\u201d by Newsweek. In addition, the theater was featured on Good Morning America and CNBC\u2019s \u201cMake It\u201d program last summer.<\/p>\n
The Mahoning Drive-in Theater was sixth on the list.<\/p>\n
Visit www.shankweilers.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published May 23. 2026 06:07AM Matthew McClanahan and Lauren McChesney, owners of Shankweiler\u2019s Drive-In Theatre, have announced the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":["post-200579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}