Morrison's Jewelers closed at 35 Moraga Way this year after more than a century in the same downtown, with a handwritten note in the window announcing that Dave and Chris were retiring. It is the kind of departure that would, in a lot of small California downtowns, mark the start of a slow decline. In Orinda, it happened during the busiest year of new openings the two-block core has seen in a decade.
If you have lived here long enough to remember when the Nation's on the corner still had a sign lit, or when the Starbucks in Theatre Square felt like the anchor of the plaza, the map of downtown you carry in your head is out of date. The turnover is not chain replacement. It is Lamorinda operators and long-time residents making second bets on the same two blocks, and this summer is when most of them become visible on foot.
The 31 Orinda Way bet
The former Bank of America branch at 31 Orinda Way sat closed after March 2022 and became, for a stretch, the most conspicuous quiet building on the north side of Highway 24. What is going in there now is a project called CreekHaus, and it is the largest single downtown redevelopment in years: the 2023 approval described a renovation and expansion of the existing 4,712-square-foot single-story building into an 8,810-square-foot two-level structure, with later revisions increasing the proposed structure to 9,397 square feet and adding a 540-square-foot third story for storage and rooftop mechanical access.
The tenant mix is what makes it interesting. CreekHaus says the space will be anchored by Equator Coffees during the day and CreekHaus Beer Garden later on, and PizzaHacker will be in charge of pizza service in the beer garden. Equator's Orinda cafe will be the roaster's 13th location. PizzaHacker, if you have not made the trip, currently operates in San Francisco's Mission-Bernal area and at The Junction in Mill Valley. CreekHaus also expects to add an upscale bistro, a full cocktail bar, a lounge, and private event spaces in the months after opening.
The second floor is not restaurant space. Launchpad Learning Lamorinda's website now lists its address as 31 Orinda Way, 2nd Floor, at CreekHaus, with a "Coming August 2026" note, and the program describes itself as a tutoring and after-school learning program for Orinda and Lamorinda students. That detail matters for anyone with kids in Miramonte's feeder pattern, because it changes the daily foot traffic of the building. Coffee at 8 a.m., tutoring upstairs at 4 p.m., pizza and beer at 7 p.m., all on the same address facing San Pablo Creek. The site backs toward the creek, and prior project materials have described creek-facing decks and outdoor gathering areas, which matters because downtown Orinda has a creek running through part of its commercial core but it is not always a visible or active part of the downtown experience.
Theatre Square, one storefront at a time
Across the freeway, Theatre Square has been rebuilding itself tenant by tenant rather than through a single redevelopment. The most visible slot, the corner that used to be Starbucks at 2 Orinda Theatre Square, is becoming Sorso Bar and Bites. Sorso, which means "to sip," will be a wine bar that offers cuisine focused on small plates as opposed to full entrees, and the focus will be on wine, with a full cocktail program as well.
The operator is worth knowing. Daniele Carsano lives in Orinda and has been part of a run of Bay Area Italian concepts including Montesacro in Walnut Creek and Casa Barotti in Berkeley. "I've been an Orinda resident for 13 years, and part of the reason [I'm opening] is that I live here," says Carsano. "Another reason is that I found Orinda lacked a comparable number of establishments in downtown. There are a few choices around, but I wanted to offer something new. And being a resident, I thought it was appropriate to contribute to the community and hopefully enrich it." He hopes to launch Sorso by late spring or early summer, with opening hours from 3 to 10 p.m. and possibly later on weekends.
Sorso is not landing in a vacuum. The adjacent tenants have quietly shifted over the past year:
| Storefront | What was there | What's there now |
|---|---|---|
| 2 Orinda Theatre Square (corner) | Starbucks | Sorso Bar and Bites (opening 2026) |
| Former Subway space | Subway | Shemroon Cafe (Persian-inspired coffee) |
| Theatre Square gallery slot | Vacant | Lamorinda Atelier (opened Nov 2025) |
| Japanese eatery | Serika, prior ownership | Serika, new ownership |
| Suite 111 | Retail | LIT Studio (Lamorinda Improv Theater) |
| Tap room | Fourth Bore | Fourth Bore |
Fourth Bore has held its slot as the anchor tap room, and next door Shemroon, a Persian-inspired coffee shop next door to the wine bar, gives the square a daytime pull that Starbucks used to own. Lamorinda Atelier opened at Orinda Theatre Square in November 2025 as an art gallery and creative gathering place showcasing fresh contemporary art alongside rare secondary market works. LIT Studio at Suite 111 runs adults-only improv jams that are the closest thing downtown has to a comedy club.
Read together, the pattern is unusual. The addition of Sorso at the prominent storefront location, which has been vacant for a significant time, should give the Theatre Square development a shot in the arm, boosting existing establishments such as the Fourth Bore tap room, Japanese eatery Serika, and Shemroon. This is not one landlord's leasing sheet. It is a cluster of independent operators arriving in the same eighteen-month window.
The edges of downtown, and what replaced what
The turnover extends past Theatre Square. In the old Nation's building on Moraga Way, Bravo's Pizza opened in Orinda where Nation's used to be, and now a new pizza joint called 8 Moose Pizzeria has also opened in the same corridor. The Sharetea slot became something else too: Nine Tailed Fox, opened by a Miramonte graduate and Orinda native, is a place for people of all ages to laugh, enjoy and share boba and bubble waffles. On the retail side, The Fish Barn, a freshwater aquarium shop, opened recently in Orinda, which is the sort of specialty tenant that usually gets priced out of a downtown of this scale.
If you have been telling out-of-town guests for a couple of years that Orinda is a nice place to walk before a movie but there is nowhere to actually go, that line has expired.
The weeknight rhythm that hasn't changed
For all the new signage, the summer weeknight architecture of Orinda is still built around a few free, repeatable events that most residents already know exist but rarely calendar. This is the year to actually put them on the calendar, because they now bookend a downtown that has somewhere to sit down afterward.
- Saturday mornings: The Orinda Farmers' Market runs at 9 a.m. on Orinda Way in front of the Community Park, which puts it a two-minute walk from where CreekHaus is opening.
- Thursday evenings: Orinda Summer Thursdays run in the park, with food trucks from 5 p.m. and free Concerts in the Park at dusk. On movie nights, films start at dusk with food trucks earlier in the evening.
- Friday and Saturday nights, outdoor theater: The Orinda Starlight Village Players perform at the Orinda Community Center Park Amphitheater at 28 Orinda Way, with recent productions including an adaptation of Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd."
- Last Sunday of the month: Film critic Matías Bombal leads a free tour of the Orinda Theatre at 11 a.m., and hosts a classic matinee on the last Tuesday of each month.
- Second Tuesday of the month: The Orinda Theatre runs a free movie night, and Super Tuesdays put all films at $8.
- Live at the Orinda concert season: The Live At the Orinda 2026-2027 Concert Season announcement is coming in late summer, so the fall calendar will land while the summer one is still running.
The through-line
Downtowns turn over all the time. What is unusual about this one is who is doing the turning. Sorso's operator has lived in Orinda for thirteen years and built his last several restaurants elsewhere. The person who opened Nine Tailed Fox is a Miramonte graduate. Launchpad Learning is a Lamorinda tutoring outfit taking a second floor above a coffee shop. Even PizzaHacker, the one out-of-town brand in the CreekHaus mix, is landing as a service partner inside a locally programmed beer garden rather than as a standalone franchise.
For a resident, this is a small but real shift in what downtown Orinda is asking of you. For most of the past decade, if you wanted a full evening, you drove to Lafayette or Walnut Creek. That calculation is changing block by block, and by the end of this summer it will look different again once CreekHaus opens the doors on its creek-facing side.
If you own a home here and have not walked the two-block loop from the Community Park past 31 Orinda Way, across to Theatre Square, and back through the Village District in the last six months, that walk is the fastest way to update the mental map. Do it on a Thursday around 5:30 p.m., when the food trucks are setting up and the market crews are packing out. You will see the town your neighbors are quietly building.
When you are ready to talk about how this shifting downtown fits into your long-term plans for your home, whether that means staying put through the next chapter or thinking about a move, Emon Komeily is happy to sit down over coffee at one of these new tables. Let's Connect.
