Tartine Bakery is serving customers in Mill Valley for the first time in more than two decades.

The celebrated San Francisco bakery brand began soft-open service at Strawberry Village on Thursday, Aug. 13, with staff training underway ahead of a formal grand opening on Wednesday, Aug. 19, The Ark reported. Service has been intermittent during the training period, so hours may be limited until the official opening.

The new cafe occupies about 3,000 square feet at 800 Redwood Highway, Suite 125, and marks Tartine's first location in the North Bay. The space, designed by Studio BBA, includes indoor and outdoor seating and a beverage program featuring coffee, tea, beer and wine, according to a profile by restaurant consulting firm McFadden-Finch Group. The menu will include croissants, sourdough, seasonal quiches, smoked salmon and avocado tartines, and salads.

The opening is a homecoming. Tartine co-founders Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson operated Bay Village Breads at 17 Madrona St. in Mill Valley from roughly 1999 to 2002 before relocating to San Francisco, where they opened the flagship Tartine Bakery at 600 Guerrero St. in the Mission District. The pair won the 2008 James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef, and Robertson's 2010 book "Tartine Bread" helped spark a national sourdough craze.

The Mill Valley opening was first announced in 2025 with a projected opening that year, but the timeline slipped repeatedly. The San Francisco Chronicle listed it among its most anticipated 2026 Bay Area openings with a "late July" target. The soft open finally arrived in mid-August.

Tartine joins a wave of new tenants at Strawberry Village, which is owned by Washington, D.C.-based real estate firm EDENS. Alexander Ragonese, EDENS' senior vice president of investment and development, told The Ark in March that "long-anticipated eateries Tartine Bakery and Cholita Linda are still on track to open this spring." That spring target slipped, but the bakery is now operational. The center has 55 leasable spaces; after the current round of openings, three vacancies are expected to remain in the spots formerly occupied by Pizza Antica, Spanish Table and Mike's Camera.

The shopping center has seen significant tenant turnover since EDENS acquired it in 2022. Rob Hansen, president of Woodlands Pet Food & Treats, told The Ark in March that he believed EDENS had little choice but to continue pushing out local tenants by raising rents while courting national brands with private-equity backing. Hansen's shop relocated to The Cove shopping center after EDENS directed him to vacate his longtime Strawberry Village space.

Tartine also operates its original Mission District bakery, an Inner Sunset location and the Manufactory on Alabama Street in San Francisco, along with outposts in Los Angeles and Seoul, South Korea.

The grand opening is set for Wednesday, Aug. 19, at 800 Redwood Highway in Strawberry Village.