BENTON – The Benton Drive-In restaurant will re-open after less than a year’s inactivity Friday.
The traditional fare of hamburgers, French fries, drinks and frozen treats will go on sale to customers at 4 p.m. and will be served until around 8 on the first day of operation, according to new owner Kellon Bahre.
“We are so incredibly excited,” said Bahre, whose partner in the venture is her father, “Dollar Bill” Cossler, who was a customer during the drive-in’s heyday. Both father and daughter are Benton natives.
“Forty years ago, when [Cossler] was riding his bicycle down the sidewalk at Benton, he never dreamed that he would be owning it,” Kellon Bahre said.
Now, she said, she and her 55-year-old dad are looking forward to “being able to put life back into it the way everyone knew it in the ’60s and ’70s.”
The drive-in has a lengthy history at the south end of town, just above the point at which U.S. 641 divides into north-south one-way thoroughfares.
“We know that it was open probably in the ‘40s, not in its present form, but as an ice cream stand,” Bahre said.
In the 1950s, it fit right into the emerging post-World War II car culture and became a teen-aged cruiser’s hang-out.
“Our plans are to revamp it into what it was known as historically,” Bahre said. “We don’t plan on changing anything on the menu, the original Benton Drive-In menu – some twists, possibly some new sweet treats. A sweet treat for everyone.”
One new wrinkle – Bahre plans to offer business deliveries during lunch hours.
Also, the new owners plan to extend their operation to year-round, rather than a summer seasonal schedule.
Previous owners Starr and Jerry McMurtry operated the drive-in the past 12 years. Bahre said when they closed in October of last year, they did not intend to re-open. The business was acquired by Magic Valley Bar-B-Q owners Larry Whitt and Jeff Edwards, and the Bahres acquired the property from them.
Regular operating hours will be 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday and closed on Monday.
“We’re pretty excited,” Bahre said. “Our friends, family and Marshall County as a whole has made this possible. We bought this almost three weeks ago, and there is no way anything would have been possible without people jumping in and helping.”