The sun is setting on an era in Fort Worth as the Coyote Drive-In enters its final weekend.<\/p>\n
The business opened knowing its lease with the Tarrant Regional Water District would one day end to make way for the next phase of the Panther Island project. That time has now come, leaving longtime employees and customers to say goodbye to a place that became more than just a spot to catch a movie.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t fill this. You can\u2019t fill this void that\u2019s going to be left,\u201d musician Devin Leigh said.<\/p>\n
General Manager Chris Fortune has been with the Coyote Drive-In since it opened. In recent weeks, he has been busy saying goodbye to the customers who have made memories there over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s bittersweet. It\u2019s been a long ride,\u201d Fortune said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a lot of thanks and support \u2013 a lot of sad faces, people that are going to miss us, but it\u2019s been great to know that we\u2019ve reached so many people,\u201d Fortune said.<\/p>\n
For longtime customer Marlena Hall, those memories stretch back years. She has been bringing her teenage sons to the drive-in since they were toddlers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been a big part of our lives- it\u2019s very bittersweet,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n
Hall recalled one particularly memorable night when her family was watching the Marvel movie \u201cThor\u201d as lightning flashed across the sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cThor \u2013 Marvel movie \u2013 and the lightning is coming down, and they thought Thor was here \u2013 you guys were little \u2013 very little,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been a really wonderful experience \u2013 I hope it\u2019s a core experience for the boys,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n
For other customers, the Coyote\u2019s final weekend offered a chance to experience a drive-in theater for the first time. Two sisters visiting the venue said they had only seen drive-ins depicted in movies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really new to us so we just wanted to see what a drive-in movie theater is like,\u201d one of the sisters said.<\/p>\n
Over the years, the Coyote Drive-In became more than a movie theater. The Fort Worth venue also hosted events, weddings and live music, creating the kind of community atmosphere Leigh said can be difficult to replicate.<\/p>\n
\u201cFort Worth has always been community \u2013 you know \u2013 and you come out here and you see every walk of life. And I don\u2019t know where else you get that,\u201d Leigh said.<\/p>\n
Employees and customers hope that feeling can one day be recreated somewhere else.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a dying art, and I hope we can keep it alive,\u201d Fortune said.<\/p>\n
For now, the focus is on one final weekend and one last round of memories under the Fort Worth sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to serving you one last time and making some lasting memories,\u201d Fortune said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sun is setting on an era in Fort Worth as the Coyote Drive-In enters its final weekend.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-427687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}