- Goodwood, a tiny hamlet in Ontario, Canada, is the real-life "Schitt's Creek."
- Fans have been flocking there to see sites such as Bob's Garage, Rose Apothecary, and Café Tropical.
- Some locals love the attention, but others worry about tourists bringing COVID-19 into the area.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Goodwood, a tiny hamlet in Ontario, Canada, became an unlikely tourist attraction amid the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic.
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.That's because the small community of 663 residents outside of Toronto is the real-life "Schitt's Creek," a show about a wealthy family relegated to moving into their only remaining asset: a run-down motel in a tiny town they had bought as a joke years ago.
The six-season Canadian comedy has won numerous accolades, but most notably swept the 72 Primetime Emmy Awards for its final season, receiving a record-setting 15 nominations and becoming the first comedy to take home nine Emmys in a single night, including all four major acting categories.
Read more: 'Schitt's Creek' sweeps Emmy comedy awards
Fans, sometimes referred to as "Schittheads," have since descended on Goodwood, one of the towns where the show was filmed — for better or for worse.
In fact, Dan Levy, the show's co-creator and one of its stars, asked fans to stay away in a tweet.
"The towns where we shot Schitt's Creek were so lovely and accommodating to us. Please show them the same respect. Visiting right now is a threat to the residents' health and safety. Thanks for understanding," he wrote.
Since Canada's borders are currently closed to most foreign nationals due to the pandemic, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that "travel increases your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19," keep scrolling to get a taste of what Goodwood is really like.
Goodwood is a tiny commuter town 28 miles from Toronto, with a population of 663 people, according to the last census.
Goodwood is a small hamlet within the larger Township of Uxbridge. Dave Barton, the mayor of Uxbridge, told Insider that Goodwood is fairly affluent, and home mostly to workers who commute to and from Toronto, or home-based business owners.
Source: 2016 census
Goodwood itself barely covers half a square mile, according to City Data.
"It's a very small little hamlet," Mayor Barton said.
Source: City Data
Marco Cassano, the owner of Annina's Bakeshop and Catering, a local bakery, told Insider that there's really only his bakery, a gas station, a sub shop, and a wool shop in Goodwood.
Cassano has been in Goodwood for 12 years.
He catered the show for all six seasons, even accompanying the cast to other site locations.
The show's location manager told The New York Times that Eugene and Dan Levy, the father-son duo who created and starred in "Schitt's Creek," were attracted to the fact that Goodwood was so small, and surrounded by countryside.
Mayor Barton explained that Uxbridge is "the Trail Capital of Canada," thanks to its almost 137 miles of trails for hikers, cyclists, and skiers, and that there are protections on its surrounding lands, the Oak Ridges Moraine. This has kept the area from growing much.
"The majority of Uxbridge looks very similar to how it looked 50 years ago," he said. "Our growth number was 0.5% in Uxbridge last year, and it's not because nobody wants to live here. It's because you can't build enough houses here, there's just nowhere to build."
"I think [the show] wanted a town that was mostly untouched in that way, and they got it," Mayor Barton said, adding that the streets where the show was filmed are especially unchanged.
Source: The New York Times
While many interior scenes were shot in a Toronto studio, most buildings used in the show were located on the same intersection.
Read more: 19 surprising things you probably didn't know about 'Schitt's Creek'
Bob's Garage, briefly Johnny Rose's office, is one of the town's main attractions.
In real life, it belongs to a man who custom-builds wheelchairs and accessible furniture, according to The New York Times.
Source: The New York Times
Rose Apothecary is David Rose's store, which he runs with his business partner and eventual husband Patrick Brewer.
Forget fancy creams and expensive cheese: Rose Apothecary is actually Romni Wools Goodwood, a local branch of a Toronto knitting shop.
Café Tropical, run by the quirky Twyla Sands, is pretty much the only eatery in Schitt's Creek.
In reality, it's a private residence.
The town hall in "Schitt's Creek" is also located in Goodwood, but a few blocks from the intersection.
The same goes for the home of Roland Schitt, the fictional town's mayor.
The fictional Rosebud Motel is the Rose family's home for six seasons.
But the motel isn't in Goodwood. It's actually in nearby Orangeville, and currently for sale.
Goodwood has seen a huge influx of visitors since the show first aired.
Cassano, who's originally from Toronto, told Insider he doesn't mind the crowds of fans, even crediting them with his store's ability to stay open and keep his entire staff employed during the pandemic.
However, he said most residents just "like a quiet neighborhood."
Mayor Barton said that locals are just worried about COVID-19, since the show's spotlight has hordes of people getting close to their homes.
"Goodwood went from being very, very quiet to seeing many people posing for photos in front of [residents'] houses, so some people are pretty concerned," he said, adding that others love the attention and that it's probably an even split.
"Large crowds for us versus large crowds in Times Square is very different, but we'd have 40 or 50 people show up, kind of wandering around six or seven different attractions, which is quite a few," Mayor Barton said.
"They are rude," Sheila Owen, owner of Ronnie's home in the show, told The New York Times of the town's tourists. "They come and expect us to be the same people portrayed in the show — that we are hicks who are stupid."
Cassano said that tourists really started pouring in around season four. "Then you had tourist buses coming through," he said, adding that it got busier and busier with each season.
"When you see large crowds of people close to your home and there are things like stay-at-home orders, locals would prefer for things to be like they were before," Mayor Barton said.
But most locals love the show. "There's a lot of us that enjoy 'Schitt's Creek' and enjoy seeing part of our hometown brought into the spotlight like this, especially with people like the Levys who are just hilarious. We've enjoyed laughing with them," Mayor Barton said.
"Anything that adds business to our community, I think is very positive," he added. "I'd like to see some entrepreneurs find ways to capitalize on the excitement around 'Schitt's Creek.'"
"If we were sensitive about who we are, maybe people would have been offended, but when the average selling price of a home here is a million bucks, we're not overly concerned with being called a s---hole," he added.
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