Start from 26 curated places around Greensboro, GA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Cafe 44
The breakfast and lunch anchor for the Lake Oconee corridor, tucked into Village Park with artisan coffee roasted in Thomasville and made-from-scratch everything. The California Club sandwich was named one of the best 100 meals in Georgia, and the pastries sell out well before closing. Voted #1 restaurant in Greensboro on TripAdvisor and featured in Garden and Gun.
The Yesterday Cafe
A downtown Greensboro institution on N. Main Street serving soul-warming Southern food in a room hung with local history and antique photographs. The buttermilk pie is legendary and the country fried steak is as good as anyone makes it. Comfortable, unhurried, and exactly what a courthouse-square lunch should be.
Trails & outdoors
Rock Hawk Trail
A 5.4-mile moderately challenging loop through forested terrain near the Lake Oconee shoreline, with the added payoff of passing the 2,000-year-old Rock Hawk bird effigy. The trail has real character — rocks, roots, creek crossings, rolling hills — and the effigy viewing tower along the route is a genuine stop-and-stare moment. Georgia Power maintains the site and keeps it free and accessible.
Rock Hawk Blue Trail
The gentler introductory loop within the Rock Hawk trail system, with many trees and plants labeled along the way — making it something of a nature walk as much as a hike. Creek crossings, hardwood canopy, and an unhurried pace suit families and anyone who wants to focus on the effigy and forest rather than elevation gain. Starts and ends at the main trailhead parking area.
Things to do
Young Harris Water Sports at Lake Oconee
The largest and most varied boat rental operation on Lake Oconee, with pontoons, wake boats, jet skis, a Tiki Bar Boat, and a double-decker tritoon with a water slide. Family-owned with five locations around the lake; the Eatonton location on Lake Oconee Parkway is the main hub. Orientation is thorough and the staff is accustomed to first-time renters. Book ahead in summer.
Oconee Wild Watersports
A small family-run operation next door to the Lake Oconee Bistro at 1133 Lake Oconee Pkwy, specializing in kayaks, paddleboards, pontoon boats, and jet skis with a reputation for personal service and clean equipment. They bake bread on-site and deliver subs to boats — a detail that says everything you need to know about how they run things. Great option for more personalized attention than the larger operators.
Landmarks & sights
The Old Gaol
Built in 1807 and modeled on the Bastille, this is Georgia's oldest surviving masonry jail — the granite walls are two feet thick, the castellated battlements are unchanged, and the gallows and trap door still work. It now operates as the L.L. Wyatt Museum of law enforcement history. Access through the adjacent Genuine Georgia shop, which keeps the key.
Greene County Courthouse
An 1849 Greek Revival courthouse that remains one of the oldest active courthouses in Georgia, with four Doric columns, a three-story red-brick facade, and a Masonic lodge that has occupied the top floor since construction. The surrounding block on N. Main Street is the architectural heart of historic Greensboro — worth a slow walk to take in the antebellum streetscape.