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Historic place

Zi-Chex Drive Inn

3801 W Gandy Blvd, Tampa, FL

A 1952 drive-in with a cocktail lounge, parked between a jai alai fronton and a dog track, was torn down in 1997.

📅 1952–1997🏛️ RestaurantDemolished
Open on the mapSlide back to 1952

The story

Zi-Chex Drive Inn opened in 1952 on the northwest corner of Dale Mabry Highway and Gandy Boulevard, during the postwar boom in drive-in restaurants. Unlike most drive-ins it had a lounge serving cocktails. It specialized in Southern dishes such as fried chicken, seafood and steaks, and lunches cost 60 cents.

It stood near MacDill Air Force Base, the Tampa Jai Alai Fronton to the south and the Derby Lane dog track to the west, and Old Tampa Photos suggests it drew some of the gamblers from those venues. The original building was torn down in 1997. A Hollywood Video store and other retail went up on the corner, the video store closed in 2008, and a Qdoba moved into the subdivided space in 2009.

What's There Now

The corner is a strip of retail including a Qdoba, a Mattress Firm and a T-Mobile store.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

It had a cocktail lounge, unusual for a drive-in.
Lunch cost 60 cents in the early years.
Qdoba took over part of the site in 2009.

Nearby history

Tampa Jai-Alai Fronton

5125 S Dale Mabry Hwy · 495 m away
Tampa's fronton opened in 1953, hosted Springsteen and Bob Marley, played its last game on July 4, 1998, and is now a Ho

Bern's Steak House

1208 S Howard Ave · 4.8 km away
Bern and Gert Laxer bought a bar called Beer Haven and reused the letters on its sign to spell out Bern's.

Peter O. Knight Airport

700 S Davis Blvd · 6.2 km away
Tampa's first real airport sat on Davis Islands; airliners outgrew it by 1946, and the original terminal was torn down i

Fort Homer W. Hesterly Armory

522 N Howard Ave · 6.5 km away
A New Deal armory in West Tampa where Elvis played at least four times in 1955 and 1956, now a Jewish Community Center.

The Big Orange Drive-In

1301 W Kennedy Blvd · 6.6 km away
A 24-hour carhop drive-in nicknamed the Big Orange, known for its orange-pants uniforms, lost its liquor license in 1956

Valencia Garden

811 W Kennedy Blvd · 6.8 km away
Manuel Beiro's Spanish restaurant ran 82 years, survived a 1966 fire and closed when the University of Tampa bought the

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Sourceshttps://www.oldtampaphotos.com/zi-chex-drive-inn-restaurant