Families crowd together to watch “Song of the Sea” at Morgan’s Grove Park on Saturday. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Families gathered together on the lawn of Morgan’s Grove Park on Saturday night, ready to kick off the summer season with the first monthly movie showing, “Song of the Sea.”

The host of the second Saturday summer movie night series is the Shepherdstown Community Club (SCC), owner of Morgan’s Grove Park. According to Park Manager and SCC Vice President Carrie Blessing, the series was founded by SCC board member Jenny Haynes, who now organizes it together with Blessing.

“We’ve been doing this for a few years. It was a lot of work, because we relied on all of our volunteers to run the concession stand and set up the movies,” Blessing said, noting that this prevented club members from being able to enjoy the movie nights themselves. “So we decided this year to partner with local businesses to sell their food out of our concession stand. It gives them a platform and adds a bigger draw for the community to come to — makes it more interesting, as an event.”

This change was fully approved of by Shepherdstown resident Geb Schramm.

“This is the sort of thing that I could get my parents and sister to come out to — to come out for a good meal and movie night at the park,” Schramm said.

Moviegoers line up to order supper and snacks from Alma Bea at Morgan’s Grove Park on Saturday night. Tabitha Johnston

“It’s not just hotdogs and chips, which is a great change. My mom has a sensitive stomach, so burgers and hotdogs are not something that she can normally eat, but next month they’re having Ortega’s, which is great Mexican food that I know she would love. I think it will be a good draw to get people out.”

On Saturday night, the park’s concession stand was manned by Alma Bea, an Appalachian restaurant in Shepherdstown. For Alma Bea Chef de Cuisine Tessa Tennyson, working together with the park in this way was an enjoyable change of pace — a partnership she hopes will continue in future summers to come.

“I put together this little menu for the community, to showcase some of the things that we have at the restaurant,” Tennyson said. “Pretty much everything here is from the restaurant’s regular menu, but highlighted in a different way for movie night. The Algae Popcorn, topped with our green goddess dressing, is something we have on our regular menu. Everything that’s on the Appalachian Tots we have at Alma Bea, as well — the brisket in it came straight from the smoker over there. We did a little bit of tweaking, using our creativity for the movie night, to make everything easier for people to eat. I would describe it as fast-food, but from-the-heart food.”

The July 13 movie night, featuring the environmental movie “King Coal,” will, as Schramm said, feature Charles Town-based Ortega’s Taco Shop manning the concession stand. Currently, Blessing is in talks with the owner of a barbecue food truck based in Martinsburg for the Aug. 10 showing of the horror/science fiction movie, “Nope.” No restaurant has been selected, as of yet, to run the concession stand during the Sept. 14 showing of the comedy horror film, “Slotherhouse.”

Attendees are recommended to come at around 7:30 p.m., to enjoy the park and concessions. The movie showing begins as the sun sets, so the movie projection can be clearly seen on the park’s large, inflatable screen.

While in previous summers the movies have often been family friendly, Blessing said that this summer’s movies were selected to entertain a wider audience, with Saturday’s being the only movie intended for children and the following movies being focused on adult and teenage audiences.

“We can’t play the film until it gets dark,” Blessing said. “As the summer wears on, it gets darker later, so really July and August are not good times for kids movies, because you’re not starting until nine o’clock.”