Where does The Chair Company take place? Setting of the HBO series, explored

The Chair Company is an HBO comedy, and it is also a ride through a small American town with a whole lot of satirical edge. The show is set in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, capturing the everyday charm and quiet absurdity of Midwest life. It follows a character named Ron Trosper, who is an easygoing project manager and is someone who slowly starts to lose his grip on reality after an embarrassing workplace situation.

While the show is not actually filmed in Ohio, it being the setting plays a huge role in shaping the show’s grounded but also cluttered energy. And yes, the city it depicts is just as strange and suburban as you would expect.

Where does The Chair Company take place?

At first glance, The Chair Company feels like it could take place anywhere in America, but it actually takes place in central Ohio. The series unfolds in a suburb of Columbus, where Ron lives with his wife and kids.

From the very first episode, we as the audience get a taste of local flavor when a restaurant server recognizes Ron’s son from Dublin Jerome High School, a suburban school known to anyone from the Columbus area, which is a subtle but clear hint about where the story takes place.

Even though the show’s madness spirals far beyond just ordinary suburbia, it never strays too far from Columbus. The city has calm neighborhoods, and the ambition of the show fits perfectly with Ron’s world as a man who is surrounded by routine yet caught in something much bigger than himself. The setting helps anchor the story forward, giving every absurd twist a nudge along the way.

The Chair Company uses the Midwest not as a punchline but as a mirror, reflecting how weirdly real everyday life can get when things fall apart.

Canton, Columbus, and the heart of the story

Beyond Ron’s hometown suburb, The Chair Company also extends the show to Canton, another Ohio city that pops up throughout the episode.

Ron’s company, Fisher Robay, is building a new mall there, which is a project that becomes both his professional focus and personal undoing. The fictional “Canton Marketplace” also acts as the stage for one of the show’s most important scenes, i.e., when Ron sits down for a big kickoff speech, only for his chair to collapse beneath him. That small, humiliating fall is the red carpet event to his downward spiral into conspiracy theories and chaos.

Even though Canton is mostly a place only vaguely seen in the background, it is still key to the show’s setting. It ties together Ohio’s industrial past with its modern suburban sprawl, painting a picture of middle America that feels both familiar and eerie.

HBO confirmed that The Chair Company is set in the Columbus area, with Canton acting as a central plot point rather than a major location. Interestingly, none of the scenes were actually filmed in Ohio, and the show was shot mostly in New York City.

The Chair Company finds its absurd and vague humor in the most unexpected corners of Ohio. Though filmed elsewhere, its setting is a Columbus suburb with ties to Canton, which grounds the story in a world that feels familiar yet absurd.

It is not just about one man’s breakdown; it is about how ordinary places can hold extraordinary stories. The show proves that even in the quietest cities, chaos can sit just beneath the surface, waiting for one broken chair to bring it all crashing down.

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