The Redwood Drive-In sits on the edge of West Jordan where the city quietly becomes Taylorsville, and it has been showing movies on the same stretch of asphalt since 1950. That is not a selling point fabricated for nostalgia tourism. It is just a fact, and on a Friday night in July, the place is genuinely packed.
So here is the question newcomers always ask: is a drive-in actually worth the hassle in 2024, or is this purely a nostalgia trip for people who grew up before streaming?
The honest answer is that it depends on what you’re after. If you want the crispest picture and Dolby Atmos sound, stay home. If you want to watch a first-run blockbuster from the back of a pickup truck with your dog technically breaking a rule nobody enforces, then yes, the Redwood is absolutely worth it.
The setup is straightforward. You tune your car radio to the designated FM frequency — the sign at the entrance will tell you which one — and the audio comes through your speakers well enough that you don’t need to fiddle with it much. The screen is large and readable if you park in a decent spot, which means arriving at least 30 minutes before showtime. People who show up at dark already have the good real estate claimed.
Admission runs about $10 per adult and $3 for kids under twelve, and your ticket covers a double feature. That’s the other thing: they still do double features. You pay once and you get two movies, which at current theater prices is quietly one of the better deals in the Salt Lake Valley.
The snack bar is functional rather than inspired — popcorn, hot dogs, nachos, fountain drinks in sizes that require two hands. Nobody is coming here for the food. Most families unload their own coolers, set up folding chairs beside the car, and treat the whole thing more like a tailgate than a cinema outing. That casual arrangement is exactly the point.
Weekends in summer are the busiest, and the double feature crowd tends to stay through both films, which means you will not easily leave after the first one without a small navigational puzzle in the dark. Worth knowing in advance. Weeknights in late summer, when the kids are almost back in school and the adults are quietly mourning it, tend to be the most relaxed atmosphere.
The Redwood shows first-run films — whatever is playing wide at the multiplexes — not curated art house selections or themed retro nights. If you want Twin Peaks projected on a drive-in screen, this is not the place. If you want to see the latest Marvel entry while your kids fall asleep in the backseat before the third act, the Redwood will do that job without complaint.
It is also one of the few places in this part of the valley where you can sit outside, face a large screen, and have a genuinely low-pressure evening without spending forty dollars before you’ve ordered anything. That alone explains why the lot fills up the way it does.
