Two long-running Orinda Way businesses closed in the past year. The Rite Aid on Orinda Way shut down late last August after 67 years, a neighborhood stop for cold medicine, snacks, and prescriptions. A block away, Morrison's Jewelers is closing after more than 102 years in business, with the owners retiring after decades in business. Those are the kind of exits that usually leave a small downtown feeling thinner than before.
This time, the opposite is happening. Between the former Bank of America site at 31 Orinda Way and the storefronts around the Orinda Theatre, downtown is being rebuilt around a specific idea it has never really committed to: a place you linger in after dark rather than drive through on the way home from BART. If you already live here, the practical result of the summer 2026 openings is that a Wednesday evening no longer has to end at your kitchen table.
What's open, what's coming, and where
- Shemroon Cafe, Theatre Square. Open, in the space announced last July as a new Theatre Square cafe.
- Lamorinda Atelier, Theatre Square. An art gallery and creative gathering place that opened in November 2025, showing contemporary work alongside secondary-market pieces.
- 8Moose Pizzeria, former Nation's site. Open, following Bravo's Pizza in the same location.
- Nine Tailed Fox, former Sharetea space. A boba and bubble waffle shop opened by a Miramonte graduate and Orinda native.
- Sorso Bar and Bites, 2 Orinda Theatre Square. Coming soon in the former Starbucks storefront.
- CreekHaus, 31 Orinda Way. A community gathering project on the former Bank of America site across from the Orinda Community Center Park, with coffee, food, beer, cocktails, and outdoor space.
- Kibi's, Theatre Square. The Vietnamese favorite is moving across the way inside Theatre Square.
The 31 Orinda Way project is bigger than it reads on paper
The former Bank of America branch at 31 Orinda Way closed in March 2022. What's replacing it is not a like-for-like tenant swap. The 2023 approval described a renovation of the existing 4,712-square-foot, single-story building into an 8,810-square-foot, two-level structure. Later revisions increased the proposed structure to 9,397 square feet and added a 540-square-foot third story for storage and rooftop mechanical access.
In a downtown where commercial buildings are mostly small and single-purpose, roughly doubling the floor area of one of the most prominent lots on Orinda Way is a structural change, not a facelift.
The tenant mix reflects the same ambition. CreekHaus will be anchored by Equator Coffees during the day and CreekHaus Beer Garden later on, with PizzaHacker running pizza service in the beer garden. Equator's Orinda cafe will be the coffee company's 13th location. The project is expected to add an upscale bistro, a full cocktail bar, a lounge, and private event spaces in the months after opening, and Launchpad Learning Lamorinda has listed 31 Orinda Way, 2nd Floor as its address with a "Coming August 2026" note, describing itself as a tutoring and after-school learning program for Orinda and Lamorinda students.
The part that changes downtown's geometry is the back of the building. The site backs toward San Pablo Creek, and prior project materials described creek-facing decks and outdoor gathering areas. 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. Turning that creek edge into a public-facing patio is the single biggest reason CreekHaus reads as a new public space and not just a bigger restaurant.
Sorso, and why Theatre Square is the other half of the story
Theatre Square has spent several years with visible vacancies. The most prominent of them, the corner storefront next to the Orinda Theatre that used to house Starbucks, is being taken by a new bar and small-plates concept. Sorso is a wine bar and small Italian plates concept set for the former Starbucks location at Theatre Square adjacent to the Orinda Theatre, from Daniele Carsano, a native of Turin who has been involved with Italian-inspired restaurants in the Bay Area including Walnut Creek's Montesacro and Casa Barotti on College Avenue in Berkeley.
Carsano isn't opening a satellite location. He has been an Orinda resident for 13 years, and says part of the reason he's opening here is that he lives here and found Orinda lacked a comparable number of establishments downtown. Sorso, which means "to sip," will be a wine bar with cuisine focused on small plates rather than full entrees, with a light kitchen, a broad wine list, and a full bar with a robust cocktail menu.
"Pull people from Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Oakland or Berkeley."
That's Carsano's stated ambition, and it inverts the usual Lamorinda dinner logic. For years, Orinda residents drove to Lafayette or Walnut Creek for a late drink. Sorso's planned hours are 3 to 10 p.m., possibly later on weekends, with the owner openly hoping to help create a late-night hangout scene in Orinda.
Sorso doesn't stand alone in Theatre Square. The Fourth Bore tap room, the Japanese eatery Serika under relatively new ownership, and Shemroon, a Persian-inspired coffee shop next door to the wine bar, sit around the same courtyard. That is the first time in recent memory that the Square has offered a coffee-to-cocktails arc without a dark storefront breaking the sequence.
The Thursday night that already works
The summer programming that makes all of this cohere is already in place. Thursday Nights in the Heart of Orinda runs June through September at the Orinda Community Center Park, with the Taste of the World Market food trucks, music, and movies. The park sits directly across from the CreekHaus site. In practice, that means a resident walking to a food truck this summer will pass the CreekHaus construction fence on the way there and, once it opens, the choice becomes food truck plus concert or beer garden plus creek deck. Both options live on the same block.
What this actually changes for someone who already lives here
The city has been signaling the shift for a year. Mayor Latika Malkani has described Orinda's downtown as having untapped potential to transform into a premier shopping and dining destination in the Lamorinda area. More concretely, the Orinda City Council voted to fund a façade improvement program that will provide up to $10,000 for smaller projects and match spending up to $30,000 total for larger ones, with $75,000 allocated to the pilot running through June of next year. That is a small budget in absolute terms and a meaningful one when placed against a downtown where a single new awning or repainted storefront reshuffles the visual order of an entire block.
For a resident, the practical takeaways are narrower than the headlines suggest.
- A weeknight loop is finally continuous. Coffee at Shemroon or Café Teatro, a movie at the Orinda Theatre, a glass of wine at Sorso, and, once CreekHaus opens, a beer on a creek-facing deck are all within a five-minute walk of each other.
- The Thursday food-truck night that most families already use as their summer default now has a permanent counterpart across the street rather than folding up at 9 p.m.
- Storefronts that were placeholders are picking up owner-operators with local roots. A Miramonte graduate running the boba shop and a 13-year Orinda resident opening the wine bar are not the same as a national chain leasing a corner.
None of this settles whether downtown will actually become the destination the mayor described. The real test will come when CreekHaus opens: whether the space feels genuinely open and community-oriented, what the prices are like, how easy it is to park and move through the site, and how well the indoor, outdoor, food, office, and event uses all fit together. Timelines can shift, tenants can renegotiate, and a rainy fall can slow a rooftop deck's usefulness. What has already changed, before a single new door has opened, is the assumption that downtown Orinda closes at dinner.
If you have been in your Orinda home long enough that the downtown map in your head still starts at Rite Aid and ends at Morrison's, this summer is worth a fresh walk from the community park to the theatre. The block reads differently now.
If a shifting downtown has you thinking about what your Orinda home is worth in the current market, Teri Carlisle & Alexandra Dierkx offer a calm, considered read on value and timing. Request a complimentary home valuation whenever you'd like a starting point.
