Lenora Hills was invented purely to give the Byers family somewhere new to run to in Stranger Things season 4, and it doesn’t correspond to any real town in California. What makes the fictional setting unusually easy to track down in real life is that Netflix built almost the entire town in New Mexico, and left behind a working phone number fans can still dial today.
Table of Contents
- Why the Byers family ends up in Lenora Hills
- Where Lenora Hills was actually filmed
- Surfer Boy Pizza’s real name and working phone line
- The other real spots hiding inside Lenora Hills
- Frequently asked questions about Lenora Hills
Why the Byers family ends up in Lenora Hills
Lenora Hills is introduced in Stranger Things season 4 as the small California town where Joyce, Will, and Jonathan Byers relocate following the events of season 3, bringing Eleven along under a new identity to help her hide from Hawkins Lab. According to Wikipedia’s page on the show’s fictional geography, the move was partly inspired by the Duffer Brothers’ love of Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” recreating that film’s quiet suburban California setting for Eleven’s own outsider storyline.
The location gives the season an entirely new visual palette compared to Hawkins’ small-town Midwestern streets — sun-bleached, dusty, and suburban in a way that plays directly against the show’s usual Indiana backdrop, while still keeping the core themes of isolation and not fitting in front and center for Eleven’s arc that season.
Where Lenora Hills was actually filmed
Lenora Hills was filmed almost entirely in and around Albuquerque and Los Lunas, New Mexico, according to ScreenRant’s location guide, after Netflix purchased Albuquerque Studios in late 2018. That acquisition gave the production a built-in reason to shoot season 4’s California-set storyline in the New Mexico desert rather than California itself, and the Stranger Things Fandom wiki confirms the show’s internal scripts originally referred to the fictional town as “Dover” before settling on the Lenora Hills name used on screen.
Lenora Hills High School, where Eleven, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle all attend classes, was filmed at the real Eldorado High School in Albuquerque, according to KRQE’s coverage of the show’s local filming locations. The production team also repurposed a distinctive coffered ceiling from the school’s administration building — originally scouted for a different scene entirely — as the setting for season 4’s new Rainbow Room sequences.
“It’s not clear where exactly in California the fictional Lenora Hills is situated,” ScreenRant noted, “but it’s presumed to be in the Southern California area around the Los Angeles suburbs.”
Surfer Boy Pizza’s real name and working phone line
Lenora Hills’ most beloved real-world location is Surfer Boy Pizza, Argyle’s workplace throughout season 4. According to Yahoo’s location guide, the restaurant is actually Aliberto’s Mexican Food, a family-owned restaurant in Albuquerque with a functioning drive-through, where fans can still order menu items like carne asada fries and caramel churros rather than the show’s fictional pizza offerings.
The location comes with a genuinely interactive Easter egg: the phone number painted on the side of Argyle’s delivery van in the show, 805-45-PIZZA, is a real, working number that connects callers to a 20-second pre-recorded voicemail message performed by Argyle himself. It’s a detail that’s turned a simple set dressing choice into one of the more popular pieces of hands-on trivia for fans visiting the area, since anyone anywhere in the world can dial the number without needing to travel to New Mexico at all.
The other real spots hiding inside Lenora Hills
Lenora Hills’ junkyard — where Jonathan and Argyle play golf among abandoned cars, and where the group later buries Agent Harmon after escaping a military attack — was filmed at Montessa Park, a 577-acre off-road vehicle area in Albuquerque’s South Valley, according to Looper’s location roundup. The Stranger Things Fandom wiki notes the scene also becomes plot-relevant beyond its comedic setup, since it’s where Mike discovers a hidden dial-up number connected to a secret government facility.
Several other pieces of Lenora Hills’ geography have real-world counterparts as well. Looper reports that Rink-O-Mania, the roller rink featured in the show, was filmed at the real Skate-O-Mania, while the kitschy Route 66 Americana Motel doubled as the Alaska motel Joyce and Murray visit later in the season. The Byers family’s California home, according to the same guide, can still be found at a specific Albuquerque address, though Yahoo’s coverage notes the house has since gone up for sale after previously operating as an Airbnb rental for visiting fans.
For more on the character whose job at this pizza shop became one of season 4’s most memorable threads, Read more: Argyle covers his full arc and unexplained absence from season 5. And for the fellow California transplant whose storyline unfolded alongside Eleven’s throughout this season, Read more: Winona Ryder’s Casting breaks down Joyce Byers’s journey across the series.
KRQE’s full photo tour of the show’s New Mexico filming locations goes deeper into several other Lenora Hills sites, and it’s worth reading in full here.
Stranger Things 5 | Official Trailer | Netflix
Frequently asked questions about Lenora Hills
Is Lenora Hills a real town in California? No. Lenora Hills is a fictional town invented for Stranger Things season 4, though it’s meant to be set somewhere in the Southern California area.
Where was Lenora Hills actually filmed? Lenora Hills was filmed almost entirely in and around Albuquerque and Los Lunas, New Mexico, after Netflix purchased Albuquerque Studios in 2018.
Can you actually call the pizza number from Stranger Things? Yes. The number 805-45-PIZZA, painted on Argyle’s delivery van in the show, is a real, working phone line that plays a pre-recorded voicemail message from the character.
What is Surfer Boy Pizza’s real name? Surfer Boy Pizza was filmed at Aliberto’s Mexican Food, a real, family-owned restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Where was the Lenora Hills junkyard scene filmed? The junkyard scenes were filmed at Montessa Park, a 577-acre off-road vehicle area located in Albuquerque’s South Valley.
