Image via Studio BBA
Over the years here at Enjoy Mill Valley, we’ve polled the community on what kind of businesses they’d like to see move into recently vacated spaces. The responses are always illuminating. But through all of our queries and polls over the years, regardless of any other factors, one answer has seemingly always been at the top of the heap: bakery love runs deep in Mill Valley.
That love has been unrequited at times over the years, despite its renowned history. Famed baker Chad Roberston and pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt started here in 1999 with the aforementioned Bay Village Bakery, closing it in early 2002, later going on to massive acclaim with their Tartine bakery. Beth Setrakian’s eponymous bakery at 34 Miller Ave. was widely loved before she relocated to Bolinas, and there was no shortage of buzz when Pascal Rigo unsuccessfully sought to reopen his renowned La Boulangerie here. Same with the brief but incredibly flavorful run of Bootjack Wood Fired in Ged Robertson’s former Small Shed Flatbreads space, which closed in 2014.
The result? Mouth-watering smells throughout downtown Mill Valley, along with those of Karen Fong’s Mill Valley Baking Co. at 17 East Blithedale and Le Marais Bakery nearby on Blithedale. Just a few steps from downtown, Madrona Bakery downtown joined the fray in October 2023. In opening her Waldscraft Artisan Bakery at 31 Sunnyside in 2022, longtime Mill Valley resident Stacey Waldspurger turned her shot-in-the-dark pandemic project in her home kitchen into a thrilling addition to a community that is steeped in love for baked goods.
But now it’s official: the Tartine sourdough will soon be rising at the Strawberry Village shopping center in Mill Valley, as the famed bakery chain is expanding with a new Marin County spot that will apparently offer some exclusive items not available at other locations.
It’s been nearly 23 years since the homegrown SF bakery-cafe Tartine opened its original 18th and Guerrero streets spot, which has of course won national plaudits and developed a cult following. By the mid-2010s, they opened their giant Tartine Manufactory some six blocks away in the Mission, and despite some negative headlines about a vermin infestation and an employee unionization effort that management was not thrilled with, the chain has now grown to three SF locations, six in Los Angeles, and per their website… six in Seoul, Korea?
And apparently they’re now adding another one, much closer to home. The Chronicle reports that Tartine is opening a Marin County location, at Mill Valley’s upscale Strawberry Village shopping center about ten miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge.
“We wanted to expand into Marin County because we know we have a strong customer base there,” Tartine CEO Dar Vasseghi told the Chronicle, in a statement probably no one would argue with.
A rendering of the new Marin County Tartine location is seen above, and the Chron reports that the 3,000-square-foot bakery and cafe is expected to open “late this year.” The Chronicle also adds the delicious nugget that this new Tartine will offer a few menu items that are “unique to this location,” though does not spill the beans on what those are.
The report mentions that the artisan fish taco chain Cholita Linda will also be opening a new spot in the same Mill Valley shopping center, though does not give any timeline on that opening. Cholita Linda currently has four East Bay locations, and one in the SF Ferry Building.
The Strawberry Village shopping center is an open-air mall that’s been in Mill Valley since 1964, but was seriously gussied-up when acquired by the mall and venue operator Edens in 2022. The palm tree-lined mall has weekly farmers’ markets, and is currently also home to a handful of restaurants, banks, spas, and sunglass shops, though its anchor tenant is a giant Safeway.
You do realize Stacey Walberger closed her business on Sunnyside quite a while ago? And that the “local investors” that have helped her have been stiffed?
I do. Was just trying to provide the broader context/history of bakeries in the neighborhood. I’m not privy to investors being stiffed.