Browns back out of Milton-Freewater drive-in sale<\/p>\n
Published 3:30 pm Friday, July 17, 2026<\/p>\n
MILTON-FREEWATER \u2014 In a turnaround from an announced change of ownership for the M-F Drive-in, the picture publicly changed on Friday, July 17.<\/p>\n
Mike and Lorie Spiess in June let drive-in fans know another longtime Milton-Freewater family was taking on the venture. <\/p>\n
The Spiesses took over managing the drive-in in 2009 after managing it for many years, taking on full ownership in 2015. <\/p>\n
Mike\u2019s parents, Dick and Loretta Spiess, bought the enterprise in 1961, opening the summer of 1962. <\/p>\n
In early 2026 an agreement was formed to sell the business to Andrew and Stephanie Brown. <\/p>\n
June 29 was going to be the last day of the Spiesses\u2019 ownership, and the weekend before was dedicated to celebrating the family and welcoming the Browns.<\/p>\n
In a social media post published July 17, the Spiesses said the Browns let them know that morning they were terminating the agreement \u201cat this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Spiess told the East Oregonian that despite the diligent work and the Browns\u2019 commitment, there had been a few signs by the end of last month the deal would not move forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just didn\u2019t feel it was going to work for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Andrew Brown declined to comment to the EO.<\/p>\n
The plan for now is to operate the outdoor theater through the end of the summer, the Spiesses said, adding the business and the land will be for sale at the end of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
In their post, the owners said they are energized to continue to be present for the community: \u201cTo quote Buzz Lightyear, we are prepared to serve you \u2018to infinity and beyond!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The plan is not to shut the drive-in down but to get out from under it. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s \u2018back to the future,\u2019\u201d Mike Spiess laughed. \u201cNobody did anything wrong, it just didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the meantime plans for special events are intact, but the season schedule will change somewhat. <\/p>\n
This coming week the drive-in will be open to the public through Tuesday, with Wednesday reserved to honor area first responders.<\/p>\n
Going forward, operating days will be Friday through Monday; carload night changes from Wednesday to Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Browns back out of Milton-Freewater drive-in sale Published 3:30 pm Friday, July 17, 2026 By Sheila Hagar\/For the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-769817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}