Hello friends, fellow travelers, and tv show fanatics!
Welcome to a special edition of The Mandala Traveler! As you regular readers know, I usually focus on fun activities and beautiful destinations instead of film tours. However, I wanted to mix things up this week based on the popularity of one of my previous posts: Tour the Real Town Behind Mystic Falls, VA. As you may already know, Mystic Falls is the fictional home to the popular TVD series, and much of the filming was done in the beautiful southern town of Covington, GA. What you may not know is that the popular spin-off series, The Originals, was also largely filmed in Georgia–in a town less than 20 minutes away!
That’s right! Despite being based in New Orleans, many of those beautiful balconied buildings in The Originals are actually from the quaint town of Conyers, Georgia.
As it turns out, Conyers is actually gaining quite the reputation as a filming destination. Covington, Georgia, is already known as “The Hollywood of the South,” but Conyers’ list is pretty impressive, too! The town’s website mentions classics like Goosebumps, Dukes of Hazard, Sweet Home Alabama, and Stranger Things. As we chatted with some of the locals in The Sandwich Factory (the facade for Rousseau’s), they also recounted recent shootings for shows like First Ladies, Legacies, and Sweet Magnolias.
With a busy schedule like this, there’s no knowing what will be going on when you visit! However, if you manage to catch it on a slow, warm Southern day, you’ll have the place mostly to yourself. And if you get lost, the residents are more than happy to point you in the right direction and share a few fun facts, too.
Watch our Tour of Conyers on YouTube!
Take a Tour of Old Towne Conyers, GA: Home to The Originals!
The Historic Train Depot
While the Historic Train Depot wasn’t technically a shooting location (as far as I know), you’ll definitely want to start your tour here. Besides doubling as the town’s welcome center, the train depot also offers some fun photo ops for fans of both series.
Back by the bathrooms, you can pose with cutouts of Elena, Damon, and Stefan. You can also sit down with The Original family and Marcel beneath the Season 3 poster in the front room!
Plus, several of the show’s iconic signs are hanging up here, including Gillespie’s Pub, Second Life Vinyl, and Jardin Gris Voodoo Shop.
Plus, several of the show’s iconic signs are hanging up here, including Gillespie’s Pub, Second Life Vinyl, and Jardin Gris Voodoo Shop.
Center Street
Perhaps the most recognizable place you’ll see, Center Street served as the central boulevard for many of the series’ festivals, funerals, and random street scenes.
While many of the shop signs were replaced with neon ones advertising jazz clubs or antique stores, and the storefronts were fitted with fake awnings and columns for filming, you can still recognize some of the individual buildings.
For example, Phil’s Pawn Shop (911 Center Street, Conyers, GA) is an often-featured white building with enormous columns and a very impressive façade. It’s shown throughout the series without the pawn sign, including in the series’ final Mardis Gras scene (S5:E13, 05:38).
In Season 1, Episode 20, during Father Kieran’s Wake, you can see the end of this street with a trolley passing by on the train tracks and all the buildings decked out with fake balconies and columns. You may recognize the pink building pictured below, which is just a couple of doors down from the Jardin Gris Voodoo Shop.
Another main-street favorite is Simply Naked Candles (906 Center Street, Conyers, GA), which doubles as the Jardin Gris Voodoo Shop throughout the series. This cute white building is given a makeover with distressed red brick, green trim, and some columns for an eerie appearance in the show. You can take a closer look at Season 1, Episode 2, about 16 minutes in.
I think the best example of Center Street seen in the show is actually in Season 3, Episode 11. Almost 15 minutes in, Davina walks down the street, and you can clearly see several of Conyer’s buildings, including The Sandwich Factory, part of the pawnshop, and several of the storefronts across the street, including the New Depot Players and The Soapary. You can also see the circular bird decal pictured below in one of the shop windows and recognize the striped awnings and colored brick cutouts on the storefronts. You can even duck into the little alleyway that Kol pulls Davina into!
In fact, I actually recommend you duck down that alley because it’s the quickest way to check out the Witches Cauldron. Turn right and head back to the small parking area behind 922 Center Street. This little area is shown from time to time in Seasons 1, 3, & 4, and it’s usually set up with bistro tables and string lights. It looks much different in its usual role as a parking lot, but you can definitely see the resemblance. I recommend comparing it to Season 1, Episode 3, 17:32.
The Sandwich Shop
You may have recognized the ornately balconied building sitting on the corner across from the pawnshop. That’s because it’s the outside of Rousseau’s! The Originals cast heads to Rousseau’s almost every episode, it seems, so you’ve probably seen quite a few glimpses of this cool building with the sign swinging in the New Orleans breeze.
The inside is not actually a bar, but a delicious sandwich shop called The Sandwich Factory. We ate lunch there, and the staff was so friendly and happy to talk about life in a movie town. I highly recommend it for a mid-tour snack stop! The address is 903 Commercial Street, Conyers, GA.
Celtic Tiger
If you head down Commercial Street, you’ll see a few more recognizable landmarks, including the restaurant used as Gillespie’s Pub in Season 3, Episode 7, 37:15. This scene shows Davina sitting alone at the bar while Marcel and Vincent stand outside.
Behind Marcel’s shoulder, you can make out some of the ornate balconies down this street.
The Pointe
The final stop on your tour is a location you might not have thought twice about during the scene, but it probably was an awesome scene to watch in person! Behind The Pointe restaurant, there is an empty lot by the railroad tracks (939 Railroad Street NW, Conyers, GA).
This lot is where Cortez compels the limousine driver to blow up the limo when he first arrives in New Orleans to confront Klaus! You can see the house across the tracks peeking over the hill, and that’s how you’ll recognize this scene from Season 3, Episode 15.
We had such a great time exploring Conyers, GA! My husband has never seen the series, but the town was so charming on its own, it made a great adventure for both of us. We ended our tour with a stop by the old-fashioned soda fountain at the Beasley Drug Store and a quick loop around the Lewis Vaughn Gardens. These aren’t part of the show (to my knowledge) but are definitely worth a quick visit.
If you do the tour, you may even want to revisit some of these places at night, just to really embrace the full Originals aesthetic! It is such an amazing feeling to stand somewhere your favorite characters have stood and imagine yourself right in the scene. I hope you get the chance to do so!
Don’t forget that you can also do an ever more immersive self-tour of Mystic Falls just 20 minutes away in Covington! Check out this post for a full tour guide that includes a meal at the Mystic Grill and locations of the actor’s signed pave stones!
Thanks for joining me on this special film tour of Conyers, GA!
If you enjoyed this post, please save it to your Pinterest board and be sure to share it with all your fellow fans!
And if you’d like to be notified about fun new posts, you can sign up for the blog newsletter for free! I’ll even throw in a free download as a thank-you for joining the community!
Sign Up for Updates from Carried Away Travels
Happy adventuring, and stay safe out there!
Pingback: Where Was the Originals Filmed? - Ask Any Question