NOLA Drive-In

I love Trader Joe’s .
Stick with me here, I have a point.
When I heard a little rumor that 300 North Broad St might be the future home of a Trader Joe’s I was ecstatic, because I’m a former Seattlite and thus, a former Trader Joe’s junkie.
Until… I went to the NOLA drive-in’s presentation of Psycho.
Then I thought, «Please world, don’t let Trader Joe’s take this away from me.»
I have been to a few NOLA drive-​in screenings, but this was my first at the new-​for-​me, «old» location.
I had only been to screenings at the other CBD location.
This location is infinitely better (believe me I know, I’m a mathematician… INFINITELY).
The old location was at the top of the creepiest parking garage I’ve ever been in. It was one-​way, which brings me to a question, why do they make parking garages this way? What do you do when you’re going up and you meet a car going down? I guess I’ll google it momentarily and find out, but I digress.
In the old location you had to take the pitch-​black stairs 4 floors down to a disgusting bathroom. At the Psycho screening, they had the fanciest «honey pot» I’ve ever experienced.
They always have food trucks. I refer you to Scott S.‘s review for the quality of the food (he is spot on; go with the pork for La Cocinita).
Plus, free PBR. Why does PBR taste SO much better if it’s free? If there is no free PBR, they offer wine and beer at a good price.

There are a few small dents on the roof of our car & I smile to myself when I see them because it will forever remind me of the night we piled on top to watch Psycho. The New Orleans Film Society really packed the top of the old Schweggmans! We had a decent view though and for 7 bucks we drank all the free PBR we could get our hands on! The kettle corn was phenomenal, I don’t even much like popcorn but the smell was intoxicating. It didn’t take long before I too was cramming the little kernels of goodness into my mouth by the wee fistful!
One of my favorite parts about this cinematic experience was that they channeled the sound onto the radio. So you could tune into some random AM station & you had your own personal speakers cranked up, booming under your bum as it crunched down onto the roof. A lot of PBR means needing to pee & the lines for the bathroom were kinda long but this was really the only drawback of the whole night. We didn’t order from the food truck THIS time! Can’t wait for next time, though we may need reinforcements for our poor roof!

Are you familiar with food trucks? Well, Nola Drive-​In is like that but for outdoor movies!
Last night I caught their showing of Psycho, as part of the New Orleans Film Society 2012 Movies to Geaux Series. It’s kind of confusing with multiple organizations working together in different places, but it seems that when teamed up with Nola Drive-​In, the movies are on top of abandoned rooftops (mainly the old Schwegmann’s in Mid-​City I think), and when teamed up with NOMA, the movies are in the sculpture garden there.
Here are the general details:
Doors open at 6pm. Movies start at dusk, or usually around 7:30pm. Follow them on Twitter @NolaDriveIn or via their Facebook page for staying in the know on what will be playing where exactly. Outside food and drink is discouraged, but they team up with various food trucks, and I don’t know if it’s par for the course or not but last night they had free unlimited PBR, the big cans too. Granted, it’s Pabst so free is actually the only price I’d ever pay for it, but even as a PBR hater I thought that was a really awesome bonus, and seemed like a real New Orleans kind of thing, for there to be free beer as lagniappe at a drive-​in on top of an abandoned building. Doesn’t it?
Here are my personal details:
We got there around 6:30 and got a good spot in about the second row of cars. Cost for entry was $ 7, but would have been $ 5 if we were NOFS members. La Cocinita was the food truck and we tried each of the three tacos they had available (cost 3 for $ 8). You can mix and match your fillings and sauces and we went with a chipotle sauce on our pork tacos, a sour cream guac salsa combo on our chicken taco, and something I can’t remember on our veggie-​friendly bean taco. I suggest just going with the pork tacos, as that was the clear winner for us. But this isn’t a review for La Cocinita anyway, so that’s all I’m saying about that. There was also a kettle corn truck there which offered three flavors, standard popcorn, standard kettle corn, and habanero kettle corn. We got a bag of the habanero for $ 4 and it was fantastic with a nice mix of sweet and spicy. Then of course there was the free PBR. We each grabbed one can and came back for seconds later. There was a girl in line for the bathroom who had drank five. I’m not sure if she’s still going to the bathroom as I write this, but it does not seem entirely implausible.
Overall, it was a classic experience of a classic movie. You can’t go wrong with Hitchcock, an abandoned rooftop, truck tacos, kettle corn, free flowing beer, and someone special to share it all with.
Nola Drive-​In, I’m officially a fan.