Sorso and CreekHaus Aren't Open Yet. Here's What's Actually Changed in Downtown Orinda

Back in March, matte black paper went up over the windows at 2 Orinda Theatre Square, the old Starbucks spot next to the marquee, with a liquor license application pasted to the glass. Two blocks over, the former Bank of America building at 31 Orinda Way has been sitting vacant since the bank closed its doors in March 2022, more than four years ago. If you've been following the coverage since spring, you'd be forgiven for thinking both spots are pouring drinks by now. As of the most recent reporting in early August, neither is. That gap between what's been announced and what's actually open is the most useful thing to understand about downtown Orinda right now.

The two projects getting all the attention, Sorso Bar and Bites and CreekHaus, are both still waiting on doors to open. Meanwhile, a handful of smaller businesses that got a fraction of the press have quietly moved in and started serving people. If your sense of downtown is built on headlines, it's out of date. If it's built on what you can actually walk into today, here's where things stand.

What's Already Open, No Ribbon-Cutting Required

While the two marquee projects work through construction and licensing, Theatre Square has filled in around them:

• 8 Moose Pizzeria has taken over the spot where Nation's used to be.
• Lamorinda Atelier, an art gallery and creative gathering space showing contemporary and secondary-market work, has been open since November 2025.
• Shemroon, a Persian-inspired coffee shop, opened next door to where Sorso is still under wraps.
• Nine Tailed Fox, a boba cafe opened by a Miramonte graduate and Orinda native, has replaced Sharetea.
• Kibi's, the longtime Vietnamese favorite, is relocating across the square rather than leaving it.

None of these made it into a splashy regional write-up the way Sorso and CreekHaus did. But if you're grabbing coffee before a movie or picking up dinner on a Tuesday, these are the businesses that changed your options this year, not the ones still waiting on permits.

The Bar Everyone's Waiting On

Sorso is the project with the most buzz and the least certainty. Daniele Carsano, who has been an Orinda resident for 13 years and previously helped build Walnut Creek's Montesacro and Berkeley's Casa Barotti, recently stepped away from those other partnerships to focus entirely on this one. His plan is an Italian tapas bar with cocktails and wine by the glass or bottle, open from 3 to 10 p.m. on weekdays with later hours possible on weekends.

"I'm going to do something in Orinda and prove people wrong."

That's Carsano's own explanation for why he's opening in a town he was told was too quiet for a late-night bar. His stated goal is straightforward: give Orinda residents a reason to stick around after a movie at the Theatre instead of driving to Lafayette, Walnut Creek, or Berkeley for a drink.

Carsano originally hoped to open by late spring or early summer. As of the most recent on-the-ground reporting in early August, that window had already passed with the doors still closed. The signage is up, the license application is filed, but there's no confirmed opening date.

The Bigger Bet, With the Bigger Delay

CreekHaus is the more ambitious project, and it's the one that's slipped the most. Orinda-based developer Ben Zarrin, whose Paymun group will also house its offices in the building, is converting the old bank branch into a three-level, creek-facing space anchored by Equator Coffees, a women-owned Marin County roaster opening its 13th location, and a beer garden serving pizza from PizzaHacker, which currently operates in San Francisco's Mission-Bernal neighborhood and in Mill Valley. A cocktail lounge, upscale bistro, and private event space are planned to follow once the first phase is running.

The project has grown considerably since its original approval. In 2023, the plan called for expanding a 4,712-square-foot single-story building into an 8,810-square-foot, two-level structure. By 2025, revisions had pushed that to 9,397 square feet with an added third story for storage and rooftop mechanical access. Every square foot added is another set of inspections, another subcontractor, another permit review.

By early August, coverage that had spent the spring promising a summer opening had shifted tone. The most recent update from Diablo Magazine describes the project's timeline as having "evolved" into a phased rollout with no set opening date, a notable walk-back from the "opening this summer" language that ran through April and May. Zarrin has been candid about the complexity, thanking the project's partners, subcontractors, inspectors, and city staff for working through it. Whatever quietly changed between those two rounds of coverage, it wasn't cosmetic.

Here's where things actually stand, business by business, as of this month:

That last line is worth sitting with. Launchpad Learning, a tutoring and after-school program built specifically for Orinda and Lamorinda students, lists its address as the second floor of a building whose first floor doesn't have a confirmed opening date yet. If that timeline holds any better than CreekHaus's has so far, it's opening right around when you're reading this.

Why the Small Storefronts Moved Faster

There's a pattern underneath all of this, and it's not complicated. A gallery, a boba shop, and a pizzeria involve one lease, one buildout, and one set of inspections. CreekHaus involves a ground-up structural expansion, a creek-facing deck, and a roster of tenants who all need to be ready at once. Friends of Orinda Creeks weighed in on the project's design, supporting the general concept of activating the San Pablo Creek frontage while raising a fair question about whether that frontage would end up feeling public or effectively fenced off behind restaurant seating. That's exactly the kind of detail that doesn't show up in a construction timeline but does show up in how the finished space actually feels to use.

None of this means the bigger projects won't be worth the wait. Carsano wants Sorso to be the room you walk into after a Theatre show. Zarrin has talked about CreekHaus as a space where multiple generations of neighbors gather from morning through night, sitting across the street from Community Park. Those are good ambitions for a downtown that has had more empty storefronts than open ones for years. But good ambitions and firm dates are different things, and right now only one of those exists.

What You Can Actually Do This Week

While you wait on the headline projects, the City of Orinda's Thursday night concert series is running on select Thursdays now through early October at Community Park, right across the street from the CreekHaus site. Orinda Parks and Rec hosts live music and food trucks from 6 to 8 p.m., with this year's lineup including The Kate Burkart Band, Salvage Title, Sixteen Scandals, and Tom and the Broken Hearts, plus the annual Opera in the Park performance sponsored by the Rotary Club of Orinda. Bring a blanket or a lawn chair. It's one of the few things on this list you can do tonight instead of waiting on it.

For anyone tracking the buildout itself, CreekHaus posts updates on its own site, and Sorso's page is live at Orinda Theatre Square even without a hard opening date attached to it.

Downtown Orinda is changing. It's just changing at two different speeds, and the slower one happens to be the one everybody's been writing about.

If you're watching this corner of Lamorinda for reasons beyond where to grab a drink, whether that's a move, a sale, or just keeping an eye on the neighborhood you already call home, Dudum Real Estate Group has agents who live and work in Orinda and can talk through what any of this means for you. Get Started whenever you're ready.