Walk through Theatre Square this month and you'll pass a storefront with the windows painted matte black, a logo taped to the glass, and a handwritten line that says nothing more than "Coming Soon." Keep going three minutes down Orinda Way, past the post office, and you'll hit a construction fence strung with warning signs where the old Bank of America branch used to be. Both sites are getting new restaurants and bars this year. Most people I talk to around town assume it's one wave of investment finally landing downtown at once. It isn't. These two projects don't share an owner, a location, a construction timeline, or even an agreement on how much of the public should get to use the creek that one of them is named after.
Understanding the difference matters if you actually live here and want to know what to expect and when, rather than just nodding along at the next block party when someone says "did you hear downtown is finally coming back?"
The Theatre Square Bet: Filling In What Almost Got Sold
Theatre Square has been the town's anchor for decades, built around the restored Orinda Theatre after a 1984 plan to demolish it for a shopping center was beaten back by a grassroots campaign. But the 87,000-square-foot retail center around the theater has spent the past several years fighting vacancy. Its Dallas-based owner, Dunhill Partners, came close to selling the property in 2025 as financing on the original acquisition loan neared its term. Executive vice president Mark Hutchinson told the Orinda News the company decided instead to secure new financing and keep the asset, closing on that loan by mid-2025.
What's filling back in since then is a mix of longtime tenants and new small operators: Serika under relatively new ownership, Shemroon's Persian-inspired coffee bar, 8 Moose Pizzeria in the spot last occupied by Bravo's Pizza, and Lamorinda Atelier, an art gallery that opened in the square in November 2025. The addition getting the most attention is Sorso Bar and Bites, set to take over the long-vacant former Starbucks space at 2 Orinda Theatre Square, right next to the theater.
Sorso is the project of Daniele Carsano, a Turin native who has lived in Orinda for 13 years and previously helped build out Walnut Creek's Montesacro (formerly Mint 54) and Berkeley's Casa Barotti on College Avenue. Carsano has said that for years, people told him Orinda was too quiet to support a lively cocktail lounge, and that part of his motivation for opening Sorso is proving them wrong. He's described the concept as Italian tapas, built around seafood crudos, pressed sandwiches, cocktails, and wine by the glass or bottle, with hours meant to catch people heading out of a movie at the Orinda Theatre. His stated goal is straightforward: give residents a reason to stay in town instead of driving to Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Oakland, or Berkeley for a night out.
That's a Theatre Square story. It's about an aging retail center that nearly changed hands, and an independent local operator with deep roots here betting his own money that downtown can support something it hasn't had before.
The CreekHaus Bet: A Different Owner, a Different Address, a Bigger Build
Three minutes away at 31 Orinda Way, the story is entirely different. The former Bank of America branch there closed in March 2022, leaving a prominent gap in the middle of Orinda Village. The site is now being redeveloped into CreekHaus, a project led by Paymun, the Orinda-based real estate and design firm run by Ben Zarrin, a local resident better known for his luxury home development in the Wilder neighborhood.
This isn't a leasing story like Theatre Square. It's new construction, and it's been scaling up. The original 2023 city approval called for converting a 4,712-square-foot single-story building into an 8,810-square-foot, two-level structure. By 2025, the plans had grown again, to 9,397 square feet with an added third story for storage and rooftop mechanical access, along with changes to the building's facade, staircases, and rear deck.
CreekHaus is set up in phases. The first will bring Equator Coffees, a Marin-founded specialty roaster with San Francisco locations at Fort Mason and the Round House at the Golden Gate Bridge, opening its 13th location here to anchor the daytime side. Alongside it, CreekHaus Beer Garden will serve pizza from PizzaHacker, which already operates in San Francisco's Bernal Heights and in Mill Valley, plus rotating local craft beer under the site's oak canopy. A later phase is meant to add an upscale bistro, a full cocktail bar, a lounge, and private event space. A tutoring program, Launchpad Learning Lamorinda, has already listed its future address as the building's second floor, with an opening it describes as coming in August 2026.
Here's where the timeline gets more complicated than the spring coverage suggested. When CreekHaus first went public with details in April 2026, the framing was that the project would open "this summer." By June, coverage described the same project still moving toward completion with no confirmed date attached to any specific phase. The most recent reporting describes an "evolved timeframe," with the rollout now expected to happen in stages rather than as one grand opening. If you've been watching that fence and wondering why nothing has changed in weeks, that's why. This is ground-up construction layered on top of a mixed-use approval that grew twice during entitlement, not a tenant improvement dropped into an existing storefront.
What "CreekHaus" Actually Means Is Still Being Argued Over
The name comes from San Pablo Creek, which runs behind the building on its way through the East Bay after originating near Orinda. CreekHaus has marketed itself around that creek, with renderings showing a rear deck for dining and drinks facing the water, and its own materials describe the project as Orinda's new backyard.
Friends of Orinda Creeks, the local group that has spent years working to turn that stretch of waterway into a usable public amenity rather than a hidden drainage channel, has said publicly that it isn't opposed to the development. Member Michael Bowen told Patch he supports the idea of people enjoying a glass of wine with a creek view, calling it a natural fit for the group's broader restoration goals. But he's also raised a real concern: that a private hospitality project could end up fencing off public access to the very feature it's using to sell itself. During construction, parts of the rear area have in fact been fenced with warning signs posted, which Bowen has pointed to as a gap between the marketing and what's happening on site. Paymun's accounting director, Stacey Tuminelli, has said the company recognizes the creek corridor's importance to the community and will keep evaluating how the finished project can contribute to it.
That's not a detail you'll find in a roundup of "new restaurants coming to Orinda." It's a live, unresolved question about public access that will likely shape how the space actually functions once it opens, whichever phase that ends up being.
Where Things Stand Right Now
Here's the state of downtown's food and drink scene as of this month, split by what's actually available today versus what's still ahead.
| Location | Backing | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sorso Bar and Bites | 2 Orinda Theatre Square | Independent, owner Daniele Carsano | Pre-opening, no confirmed date |
| CreekHaus (Phase 1) | 31 Orinda Way | Paymun / Ben Zarrin | Construction, phased rollout, no fixed date |
| CreekHaus (Phase 2: bistro, cocktail bar) | 31 Orinda Way | Paymun / Ben Zarrin | Later phase, unconfirmed |
| Launchpad Learning Lamorinda | 31 Orinda Way, 2nd floor | Independent tutoring program | Listed as coming August 2026 |
Already open and worth knowing about if you haven't been by recently: Fourth Bore Tap Room and Grill, Serika, Shemroon Cafe, 8 Moose Pizzeria, and Lamorinda Atelier, all in Theatre Square proper.
The One Thing That Isn't Waiting on Either Project
While both of those stories play out at their own pace, the Orinda Theatre itself keeps running on its own calendar. The theater's Live At the Orinda concert series closed out its 2025-2026 season this spring as its most successful run yet, and the venue says it will announce its 2026-2027 lineup later this summer, alongside its long-running Classic Movie Matinee series hosted by film critic Matías Bombal. Down the street at the Community Center Park Amphitheatre, the Orinda Starlight Village Players are closing out their summer production, a Noel Coward comedy that wraps this weekend after a run that started July 24. The Orinda Farmers' Market continues on Orinda Way in front of Community Park, the same block CreekHaus is rising on, regardless of when that project's beer garden actually opens its doors.
Two very different bets are reshaping this stretch of downtown right now: one an independent operator reviving a legacy shopping center, the other a local developer building something new from the ground up with a public creek at stake. They're worth tracking separately, because they'll land on different timelines and answer to different pressures. What won't change in the meantime is the part of downtown that was never for sale: a theater, a farmers market, and a summer season of shows that keeps going whether the storefronts around it are finished or not.
If you're weighing what a home near this stretch of Orinda might be worth to you, or you're simply curious how projects like these tend to affect a neighborhood's character over time, I'm always glad to talk it through. You can reach out through Julie Whitmer to schedule a complimentary home strategy call.