Tartine's first North Bay outpost opens Aug. 19 at Strawberry Village in Mill Valley — a 3,091-square-foot cafe, open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, a few miles from where its founders started baking 25 years ago.

Tartine opens its first Marin County bakery on Tuesday, Aug. 19, inside the upscale Strawberry Village center in Mill Valley — the sourdough house's first store north of the Golden Gate after nearly a quarter-century rooted in San Francisco.

The cafe measures 3,091 square feet and will run 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, taking over a pair of storefronts that had gone dark for years near the mall's anchor Safeway, The Ark reports (external source, opens in a new tab). The bakery started opening on and off for staff training Aug. 13, held a friends-and-family preview Aug. 15 and 16, and began a public soft opening Aug. 17 before this week's formal debut. The interior is the work of Studio BBA, a San Francisco firm that leaned into the shopping center's Mediterranean styling with tall ceilings and open sightlines onto the baking floor.

Loaves will be baked in San Francisco and driven up each morning, while the pastries are made on site, according to the reporting that broke the deal. Alongside the sourdough and morning buns that made the name, the menu lists soft-scramble tartines, a breakfast sandwich on a sweet potato bun, a ham-and-gruyère, and a double smash burger. CEO Dar Vasseghi, in a press release quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle, said expanding into Marin had long been a company goal and called the center "a neighborhood gathering place."

The opening date slipped more than once. Edens, the Washington, D.C., developer that acquired the 1964 open-air mall in 2022, initially signaled a 2025 debut; the projection later moved to spring 2026, then to the end of July, before settling on Aug. 19.

For founders Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt, the location is nearly a homecoming. The two got their start in the late 1990s baking near Point Reyes Station, ran a Mill Valley storefront on Madrona Street beginning in 2000, then decamped for San Francisco in 2002 to open the original Tartine at 18th and Guerrero, The Ark notes. That Mission flagship — registered with the City as Tartine, L.P. in February 2002, per DataSF — grew into three SF bakeries, seven Los Angeles stores and six in Seoul, plus a fourth San Francisco location leased at a former Financial District CVS and due next year. The Mill Valley shop is the rare expansion that steers the map back toward where it all began.