Welcome to, “Great Things Tampa Bay,” the podcast about great eats, great places, and great people in the Greater Tampa Bay area. I’m your host, Kyle Sasser, a Tampa Bay native and realtor. This is episode 16, “The Great (Movies) Outdoors”.

This is the “Great Places” feed, of “The Great Things Tampa Bay” podcast, where you will only hear episodes related to parks, stores, events, shows, and things to do about town. In our main podcast, which you’ll find under, “Great Things Tampa Bay,” in addition to these chats about entertainment and events, we also cover great eateries and delicious grub, as well as interview some of the great people, movers and shakers in the area.

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So, you know, we’re getting a little bit further on in the year here. Things are gonna be cooling down here shortly. I know cool is a relative term here in Tampa Bay, Florida. Fun fact I learned the other day about Tampa, is the temperature has never actually gone above 99 degrees, which is really tough to believe, the reports that I saw swore up and down. It must be the way they measure it with the fact that it’s, you know, at a certain altitude and all that good stuff, because I don’t buy it.

So, since it’s cooling off, people are going to be venturing outdoors a little bit more, spend a little bit more time outdoors enjoying the cooler weather. And what better way to do that than going out and seeing a movie in a park somewhere? So we do actually have quite a few places here in Tampa Bay to partake in a movie in a park. Most of these really get going around October, there’s a couple that do it all year long, but yeah, Saint Pete, Tampa, they usually stick to, you know, the cooler months, October through May, April, something like that.

So without further ado, over in St. Petersburg, in Straub Park, we have movies in the park. And all of this stuff, I’m going to be putting the links in the show notes, so you don’t have to really remember this. Just, you know, pop on the website, it’s got links, you can see what movies are coming up and all that stuff.

So downtown St. Petersburg, there’s movies in the park at Straub Park, which is downtown. Over in Tampa, there’s actually two. There’s one out in Channelside, at the Grand Central, on Kennedy, and this one’s called Flicks and Food Trucks. This one is on the third Thursday of the month, and it goes from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., roundabouts. This is kinda cool because they line up a bunch of food trucks there, so you can kind of go down the line there and sample it. They usually have a couple of Savory guys there, some actual food stuff, and then there’s a sweet truck, maybe some cupcakes or something like that. It’s really a nice place if you’ve never been there, and a cool place to take in a show.

Also in downtown Tampa, the City of Tampa puts on movies in the park, which is at Curtis Hixon, which is down in front of the art museum, you know, where all the water fountains are and stuff like that. They’re starting that up October 7th. They haven’t released the movie schedule yet, but they do have it slated with a October 7 start.

And finally, back over to Pinellas County, at Clearwater Beach is Sunset Cinema at Pier 60. And that one’s actually going on right now. You can go down there this weekend and go watch some movies. It is a little warm, and I say that as a native. But, yeah, if it’s something you wanna do, they’re located at 1 Causeway Blvd, and if you use your noodle a little, bit you can figure out that most of these get started around sundown.

So, besides the movies in the park, what else is there to do? Well, we actually have quite a few drive-in movie theaters hangin’ around. We did use to have one over here in St. Petersburg, it was over on 28th Street. Unfortunately, that closed back in 2000, if I remember correctly, but we do still have three. So the big one that most people know is the Fun Lan Drive-In Theater, which is over 2302 East Hillsborough Avenue. During the day, on the weekend, they usually have a flea market. So if you drive by and you see a flea market, don’t stress, that is the drive-in theater, you just need to come back later.

I will say that they usually play a little bit more bold movie choices, I guess you could say. They’re not afraid of PG-13s, and all that stuff. Last I checked, they we’re playing “Dunkirk” and that new “Annabelle” movie, yet most of the other ones are gonna be a little more family oriented. With Halloween coming up, you know, go see a scary movie at the drive-in. If you’re a fan of ’80s movies, you know how that turns out.

So, we still have two other drive-in theaters. There’s one in South Hillsborough County, down in Ruskin. It’s called the Ruskin Family Drive In, and that’s located at 5011 U.S. 41. It’s been there since 1952, and they only accept cash, so keep that in mind when you go there. And the third drive-in theater is the Silver Moon out in Lakeland, Florida. And that’s located at 4100 New Tampa Highway, Lakeland, Florida. Silver Moon has been there since 1948, and I can remember as a kid driving by, seeing the big screens with the movies going on and thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I really need to go to more drive-in theaters. I was telling Abbie about this one and she kinda got excited, the Fun Lan over in Tampa. So, we’re definitely gonna be making a point to go. That’s all the fun things to do to watch a outdoor movie. Of course, it isn’t really something you wanna do in the middle of July or August. Just it’s an exercise in being miserable, which I cannot recommend. But as the weather cools off here, definitely check one of these out. And any interest in this, please just go to our website, greatthingstb.com, find the show notes for episode 16 and I’ll have links to all this stuff there.

So, I wanna thank you for sharing “Great Things Tampa Bay’ with your friends and family. You can share us by going to our website, greatthingstb.com. There, you’ll find share buttons on nearly every page. You can share us on Twitter, Facebook, all that good stuff. If you are looking for your own great place in Tampa Bay, I’m also a licensed realtor, specializing in deep knowledge of Hillsborough and Pinellas County. So if you wanna talk real estate, you can give me a call at 727-300-2111, or you can send me an e-mail at kyle@sassergroup.com, that’s kylesassergroup.com, and I’d be more than happy to help you find your next home here in Tampa Bay.

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