History of the Neptune Drive-In Theatre

1965: Opening Night

On July 3, 1965, was the Neptune Drive-In’s Grand Opening, showing The Chalk Garden* starring Deborah Kerr. Admission was eighty-five cents. On Sundays, it was whatever you felt like giving.

The Golden Years

Through the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Azor LeBlanc and his family made sure that the Neptune became a fixture of summer life in southeastern New Brunswick. Families arrived early, spread blankets across hoods and tailgates, and watched double features under the stars. The lot filled on weekends, and the projector ran until the wee hours.

For a generation of locals and tourists, the Neptune was where you went on a first date, where you brought your children, where you sat in your car and let the evening happen around you. The place accumulated memory the way old theatres do: quietly, and in large quantities.

1985: The First Intermission

By the mid-1980s, the economics of drive-in cinema had shifted. Home video was taking on more importance, and multiplexes were spreading. The Neptune closed its gates in 1985, and the screen went dark.

1990: The Comeback

The reports of the Neptune’s death had been exaggerated. In 1990, the projector was fired up again, the lot was cleared, and people came back. They always came back. Our drive-in theatre has a gravitational pull that doesn’t obey the usual rules of the entertainment industry.

For the next three decades, the Neptune operated as a seasonal institution. It outlasted trends. It survived the arrival of streaming, the decline of physical media, and the general cultural drift toward smaller screens and private viewing. There’s something irreducible about watching a film outdoors, in the company of strangers.

2022: The Second Intermission

In mid-summer 2022, the Neptune closed again. This time it was sudden. The gates shut, the screen went blank, and the lot fell quiet in the middle of what should have been its busiest season.

For a moment, it looked like the end of the story.

2024: A New Chapter

It wasn’t.

Sébastien Després and Heather Wright, the founders of Shediac Wonderland, had been building something unusual in Shediac for years. Le Moque-Tortue, a board game bistro named after Lewis Carroll’s Mock Turtle. Adorable Chocolat, a chocolaterie with handcrafted organic cacao. Le Griffon, a Victorian bed and breakfast. Each business carried a thread of Alice in Wonderland through its name, its aesthetic, and its spirit. Sébastien, an anthropologist by training and a Carroll devotee by temperament, had long believed that Shediac could be more than a summer stop. He saw it as a destination built on curiosity, play, and the kind of hospitality that makes people want to linger.

The decision wasn’t difficult. The drive-in was already a place where people came to lose themselves for an evening. It fit.

Shediac Wonderland set about bringing the Neptune back. The old canteen was gutted and completely rebuilt as the Morse et Marteaux BBQ Smokehouse, equipped with an authentic 1000-gallon wood-fired Texas-style smoker. The name, like everything in the Wonderland family, is a nod to Carroll: *morse* is French for walrus, and *marteaux* for hammers, the tools of a carpenter. The Walrus and the Carpenter, reimagined as a smokehouse. Because in Wonderland, even the food has a backstory.

On May 10, 2024, the Neptune held its soft opening. A week later, on May 17, came the grand opening. The lot filled. The screen lit up. The brisket sold out.

Today

The Neptune Drive-In is now the largest venue in the Shediac Wonderland collection. It shows double features from spring through October. The Morse et Marteaux kitchen opens when the gates do, and the smell of slow-smoked meat drifts across the lot well before the sun sets.

During the daytime in July and August, the same grounds host the Bazar Neptune, a curated Saturday market featuring local artisans, makers, and vendors. In late August, the lot transforms once more for the Shediac Renaissance Faire. The Neptune has become a place that holds more than movies.

Three hundred and fifty cars. One screen. Sixty years of stories, interrupted twice but never finished.

The projector’s running. The canteen’s open. The sun’s going down.

Pull in. Tune in. The show’s about to start.

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The Neptune Drive-In Theatre is located at 693 Main St, Pointe-du-Chêne, NB, and is operated by Shediac des Merveilles Inc. as part of Shediac Wonderland.

The Neptune Drive-In is operated by Shediac Wonderland, the family of story-driven businesses created by Sébastien Després and Heather Wright. Le Moque-Tortue (our board game bistro), Morse et Marteaux BBQ Smokehouses & Lobster Shacks (with four locations throughout Shediac), Le Griffon (bed & breakfast), The Neptune (our Drive-In Theatre), Adorable Chocolat (our artisanal chocolaterie), Bazar Neptune (Saturday market), and Witzend Tours & Adventures (tours, escape rooms, and concierge): each one a chapter of a larger story about what happens when a community decides to take play seriously.

The Neptune is the chapter where the sky becomes the ceiling, the screen becomes the campfire, and the whole car becomes the best seat in the house.