Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Bob Craig works at the site of the Mayberry Drive-In & Diner, an idea that was conceived about three years ago.

Kathy Gentry and Bob Craig moved to the lake from the Winston-Salem, N.C., area last year.

The diner that Kathy Gentry stands in was bought on eBay and brought from the Eastern Shore.

Downtown Moneta will soon have the first drive-in theater built in the region in decades, and its owners hope it will become a destination place harking back to a slower and simpler pace of life.

Bob Craig and Kathy Gentry, in fact, hope to get married at their Mayberry Drive-In & Diner in September or October of next year, which would be its first anniversary.

Craig said his interest in drive-in theaters started at an early age. When Craig, now 59, was a boy, he said, his father sometimes operated the projectors at the former Riverside Drive-In in Southeast Roanoke.

"I was the guy that banged on the trunks and told people to leave after they [the windows] got steamed up. I was 8," Craig said.

For months now -- finalizing an idea that was conceived about three years ago -- Craig and Gentry have worked to get the project finished, including the construction of a 26-by-60-foot movie screen. The screen was built on site and hoisted into place with a crane.

Craig found the diner -- a metallic prefab 1950s-style structure -- on eBay and trucked it across the state from the Eastern Shore. It can accommodate about 120 patrons and will serve traditional American fare such as hamburgers, sandwiches and breakfast foods, as well as a daily special, Gentry said.

From the used diner to the projector and ticket booths, which are actually FedEx kiosks that will be painted to match the diner, Craig and Gentry have been creative with the project.

The couple moved from the Winston-Salem, N.C., area a year ago after buying a second home at Smith Mountain Lake a few years before. They saw the need for commercial growth, especially on the Bedford County side of the lake, said Gentry, who also works as a saleswoman for a packaging company.

In 2005, the couple approached Moneta developer George Aznavorian at the lake's annual chili festival about their idea. Aznavorian said he thought it was in sync with the retro fashion of residential and commercial development he had in mind for Downtown Moneta and the adjacent Mayberry Hills area: the return to a slower pace of living and more interaction among neighbors.

Right away Aznavorian, who later leased the property to Craig and Gentry for the drive-in, visited the two other drive-in theaters in the region -- Starlite Drive-In in Christiansburg and Hull's Drive-In in Lexington. He said he was wowed by the sellout crowds.

The national United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association estimates there are fewer than 10 drive-in theaters in Virginia. According to the association's Web site, there were more than 4,000 theaters in the United States in 1958; today there are fewer than 400.

Some analysts in the industry attribute the demise of the drive-in theater to urbanization and the demand for commercial property. Other reasons for the blight include the emergence of air-conditioned multiplex cinemas and video rental stores.

Craig and Gentry intend to attract families to what they hope will become a destination at Smith Mountain Lake. The couple set prices to make dinner and a double feature affordable -- about $35 for a family of four. Ticket prices for the movies will likely be $6 per person and free for children 12 and younger. The first movie of the night will be a first-run film and the second a release from a week or two earlier. There are parking spaces for about 200 vehicles.

Although the project is months behind schedule, Craig and Gentry hope to open in coming weeks and are planning a grand-opening celebration for October. Movies will be shown Thursdays through Sundays until the drive-in theater closes some time in November. The schedule is not set in stone, and the months of operation will depend on the weather, Craig said. The drive-in probably will reopen for the season in May. The diner will be open year-round for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Specialty nights, featuring old movies or themes, also are in the works.

And, of course, "We have got to play 'What About Bob?,' " Gentry said.

The movie, starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss, was filmed at Smith Mountain Lake in the early 1990s.