In 1999, Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt moved their Bay Village Bakery from Point Reyes Station to a small house at 17 Madrona St., just off downtown Mill Valley. They closed it in early 2002, moved to San Francisco and opened the first Tartine in the Mission District. Nearly 25 years later, Tartine is back in Mill Valley. The new cafe isn't in a cottage on a side street. It's at 800 Redwood Highway Frontage Road, in the Strawberry Village shopping center.

The choice of location says something about how Strawberry Village has changed. The center was built in 1964 as a Town & Country-style plaza. For most of its life it was where you went for groceries and errands, and then you left. Its new tenants mostly sell a reason to stay: a table, a class, a weekly market, a Saturday coffee. This fall, the pieces are finally all open at the same time.

A Homecoming With a Different Address

Tartine Mill Valley opened in mid-August. The Marin Independent Journal reported that the bread is baked in San Francisco, while the pastries, cakes and savory dishes are made on site. The room, designed by Studio BBA of San Francisco, has floor-to-ceiling windows and indoor-outdoor seating for 120. In the morning, the bakery case holds morning buns, croissants and bread pudding. At lunch there's a pressed ham and Gruyere sandwich and a double smash burger on a sweet potato bun.

The Madrona Street house kept its baking history going without them. In 2020, Ged Robertson, no relation to Chad, reopened the space as Bootjack Bakery, using the wood-fired oven that blacksmith Alan Scott built there years earlier. In its August walk of downtown storefronts, Mill Valley Briefing listed a Bootjack bakery as the incoming tenant of the former Urban Remedy storefront on Miller Avenue. So the town's two bakery stories are moving at once, one downtown and one at the freeway exit.

The Plan Behind the Plaza

Tartine didn't land at Strawberry Village by chance. EDENS bought the center in 2022. Since then, according to the company, it has added new lighting, landscaping, outdoor seating, public art and refreshed signage, and rebuilt the central plaza with a green space for live music and community events. It also added Bluemercury, CP Shades, Spot Pet Care, Modern Animal and Citizens Bank.

For leasing, EDENS hired Maven Retail, the firm that leased the Presidio's restaurants, including Dalida, Il Parco and Colibri. Alexander Ragonese, EDENS vice president of development and investment, described the goal in the company's Tartine announcement: "We are aware of the need for a gathering space for residents of Tiburon, Belvedere, Mill Valley and Sausalito and are excitedly seeking our next iteration of retail and restaurant partners to execute on this vision."

A gathering space is judged by how many hours of the day it's worth showing up for, and the 2026 tenants cover a lot of them.

Thirteen Hours of Food, Three Owners

Look at the three newest food tenants by their hours rather than as a list of openings. Each one takes a different part of the day.

Together they run from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week. For the first hour, Tartine is the only one of the three open, with omelets and quiche on its breakfast menu. After Tartine closes at 4, Lulu Dae's carries the late afternoon, which matters in a center with this many fitness studios. Cholita Linda is the only one of the three open for dinner.

Cholita Linda is "directly across the roadway from Tartine," the IJ reported. It's the restaurant's sixth location and its first in Marin. Owners Vanessa Chavez and Murat Sozeri started in 2008 at the Jack London Square farmers market in Oakland. Their menu draws on Chavez's family roots in Peru, Cuba and Mexico, along with summer trips to Baja California. Chavez told the IJ why they came to Marin: "From our experience, it's a community that values good food, and there are lots of small businesses that do things really well." They fully renovated the space with tiled rooflines, shuttered windows and papel picado hung across a high ceiling.

Lulu Dae's is the most local of the three. The IJ reported this week that its co-founders are Duncan Ley, a Mill Valley resident, Lucia Camarda and Reza Morvari. It took over a space with a long frozen-dessert history: Woody's Yogurt Place until it closed in January 2020, then Noble Cow Creamery. So soft serve is back at the same counter.

The Other Reason People Arrive Early

The food makes more sense when you see what's next to it. Strawberry Village now has one of the denser clusters of fitness studios in southern Marin:

• Hot Yoga Republic opened its second studio here on Feb. 14. The San Rafael-based studio was founded by Jessica Smith and Kathryn Keown.
• Club Pilates opened June 25, with Emma Roberts as general manager, The Ark reported.
• Pure Barre, Orangetheory and StretchLab were already in the mix.
• Barry's Bootcamp and Hydration Room, an IV therapy provider, are among the wellness tenants that came after the acquisition, according to the Southern Marin Ledger.

Classes bring people in at hours when a grocery run never would, and a cafe a few doors away gives them somewhere to go afterward. The tenants have started working together. On Sept. 26, Hot Yoga Republic, StretchLab and a cardio-strength instructor held a joint Saturday morning session, with all proceeds going to Play Marin, a youth sports and enrichment nonprofit.

The Calendar That Holds It Together

Two recurring events give the plaza a weekly rhythm, and both are easy to work into a routine.

The Mill Valley Farmers Market runs Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDENS launched it on June 13, 2023, in the frontage-road parking lot between West Elm and Starbucks. Marin Community Farmers Markets operates it. The state's certified-market list, current as of Oct. 1, 2026, shows it running year-round. The market's own page also refers to a June-through-November season, so check it before planning a December Tuesday around it.

Motor Social, a cars-and-coffee gathering with Porsche Marin, takes over the same lot on the second Saturday of each month from 8 to 9:30 a.m. The next two dates are Nov. 14 and Dec. 12. Tartine opens at 8, so coffee and a morning bun line up with the start.

There's also something just outside the center this month. PAAM is holding a Pumpkin Bash at 60 Belvedere Drive on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 3 to 5 p.m., with pumpkin decorating, carnival games, trick-or-treating and a costume dance party. Strawberry Village promoted it on its own channels.

What Fills In Next

The leasing is still going. Ernesta, a custom rug showroom that offers free design consultations, recently opened. EDENS has also announced Baan Thai Reserve at 615 Strawberry Village for 2027. It will serve Thai dishes such as pad Thai, curries and pad see ew, with a bar pouring Asian-inspired cocktails. Like Cholita Linda, it's built around dinner, and it would give the center a second evening anchor.

For now, here is how a fall week can look with what's open today. Tuesday is the market, with lunch at Tartine before it closes at 4. Weekday afternoons work for a class and a smoothie at Lulu Dae's before 7. Dinner at Cholita Linda runs any night until 9, and once a month there's an early Saturday at Motor Social. Everything sits off the same Redwood Highway Frontage Road address, which in 1999 had no connection to the bakery that started on Madrona Street.

If you're thinking about how the new Strawberry Village affects the homes around it, from walking distance on a Tuesday to what buyers ask about when they tour nearby, I'm glad to talk it through. Reach out to Melissa Crawford when you want to compare notes on this part of Mill Valley. Let's Connect.