Riverdale in Langley

Riverdale took the wholesome Archie Comics gang (Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead) and dropped them into a small-town murder mystery with a lot of neon, a lot of milkshakes and a biker gang called the Southside Serpents. It ran on The CW from January 2017 to August 2023, seven seasons and 137 episodes, and it was made in and around Vancouver.

A surprising amount of that small town is in Langley. Some of it you can still walk past; some of it is gone.

Where Riverdale filmed in Langley

Fort Langley Community Hall: the town hall

This is the headline. The Langley Advance Times called the hall the most popular Langley location for the show, where it plays Riverdale’s town hall; Hollywood North Buzz captioned the same building as Riverdale’s community hall. The hall is the 1932 building with the white columns on Glover Road.

What happened here, as far as we can trace it:

• Season 1 finale, February 2017. The show filmed its end-of-season jubilee here in the snow with roughly 150 to 180 extras, Josie and the Pussycats included, and came back the next day for more. The episode aired as “The Sweet Hereafter.”
• Season 4 premiere, July 2019. After Luke Perry died in March 2019, the show opened season 4 with a tribute to his character, Fred Andrews. Part of the town’s memorial was filmed at the hall and on the village streets, with flags at half mast. Hollywood North Buzz noted the hall was also where Fred had campaigned for mayor in an earlier season.

Glover Road, Fort Gallery, the CN station and the cemetery

The Advance Times listed more Fort Langley backdrops that turn up regularly: Glover Road looking north, the Fort Gallery storefront at 9048 Glover Road (which, the paper reported in March 2018, stood in for the Riverdale Register newspaper office), the historic CN station, Fort Langley Cemetery, and the old Euphoria Chocolate shop. Fort Langley was in the mix from the start: the pilot, shot in March 2016, used it alongside Vancouver locations.

A note on Fort Gallery: the arts group gave up its Glover Road storefront in 2022 and now works as a mobile gallery, so the shop you might recognise from the show has a different tenant now.

Fort Langley Marina Park and Church Street

Season 2 began filming here on its very first day, in June 2017: an Archie and Veronica walk by the river in Marina Park, then scenes along Church Street. KJ Apa and Camila Mendes stopped to meet fans in the park.

Gabby’s Country Cabaret: the Whyte Wyrm

From season 2, the Southside Serpents drank at the Whyte Wyrm, and the Whyte Wyrm was Gabby’s Country Cabaret on Fraser Highway at 203 Street in Langley City. The Aldergrove Star reported the crew inside in August 2017, and the show came back that September and again in December. Next door, McLeary’s furniture store was in a few shots too, the Advance Times said.

Gabby’s closed when the pandemic hit in March 2020, and in May 2020 its owners said it would not reopen, after 34 years. There’s nothing to visit now.

Williams Park, a school and a studio

• Williams Park in south Langley was dressed for a town festival in season 2, filmed around Halloween 2017 with the mayor, the sheriff and the Lodges.
• James Kennedy Elementary in Walnut Grove was used in August 2017. It’s a working school, so please leave it be.
• A north Langley studio is where much of the show really lived. When the series was picked up in 2016, production built its own Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe there (the pilot had used a real diner in Mission), and Hollywood North Buzz reported the final wardrobe sale “at its Langley studios” when the show wrapped in 2023. Studios aren’t open to the public.
• MacInnes Farms, home of the Jamestown set, lists Riverdale on both its western-town set and around its brewery.

The Twilight Drive-In, Aldergrove

In the season 1 episode that aired February 16, 2017, Jughead tries to save the town’s drive-in, and the drive-in on screen is the real Twilight Drive-In on Fraser Highway at 260 Street, filmed the previous fall. In 2023 its owner told the Advance Times the drive-in would close after the 2024 summer season, so we haven’t put it on the walk.

Fans in the street

Langley got a front-row seat to the Riverdale craze. The Advance Times covered fans lining the sidewalk outside Gabby’s in September 2017, some waiting hours, before Cole Sprouse came out to sign autographs and pose for photos; KJ Apa stopped for pictures too, and Skeet Ulrich came out on another day. At the season 1 finale shoot at the Community Hall, Apa and Sprouse went out to greet fans in the cold.

If you find a shoot today, the same rules apply as for any production: stay on the public sidewalk, keep out of the shot when asked, and don’t follow anyone back to the trucks.

A short Riverdale walk in Fort Langley

About a kilometre, flat, and done in half an hour if you don’t stop for coffee (you will). Park in the village and start at the cemetery.

1. Fort Langley Cemetery, St. Andrews Avenue. One of the village backdrops the paper listed. It’s an active cemetery; be quiet and respectful.
2. Fort Langley Community Hall, 9167 Glover Road, about 300 metres away. Riverdale’s town hall. Stand on the opposite side of Glover Road, where the fans did, for the classic angle.
3. Glover Road, heading north. The street view the show used. Look for the old Fort Gallery and Euphoria Chocolate storefronts as you go.
4. The CN station, 23245 Mavis Avenue, about 200 metres from the hall. Heritage station with a caboose and coach on the track.
5. Fort Langley Marina Park, on the riverfront about 250 metres east of the station. Where season 2 started filming.

More Langley screen history is on our TV shows filmed in Langley page, including Once Upon a Time, which used the very same hall for Storybrooke.