Makers’ Market Artisans Breathe Life and Zest into Theatre Square

    As the holidays draw closer, thoughts increasingly turn to all the unique and beguiling gifts one is expected to buy for fastidious friends and family. It gets increasingly difficult when so many goods are manufactured on a faraway continent, eventually making their way across oceans until some generic package gets tossed onto your doorstep by a man in a van.
    Sigh no more, because on Sept. 6 you’ll be spoilt for choice as you trawl the tables at Orinda’s First Friday Makers’ Market in the heart of Theatre Square, where local artisans will present you with the very thing you’ve been searching for!
    Advertised as “a charming evening in our community,” these regular First Fridays largely originated with Darin Hughes from Orinda City’s Planning Department and have been happening since May when a dozen or more different vendors laid out their wares in the exhilarating atmosphere of the Theatre Square’s restaurants, bars and live music.
    Like many small cities with limited retail areas, downtown Orinda took a big hit when the pandemic breezed through in March 2020. Small artisan shops immediately pulled down their shutters and confidently stuck hand-written signs on their doors that read “See you in May!”
    Alas, that optimism was sorely misplaced.
    After a couple of years, when it was obvious that office workers had fully embraced the concept of working from home in their PJs, and BART carriages no longer echoed to the sound of commuters yelling into cell phones, even the big international establishments like Subway and Starbucks quietly crept away from Theatre Square.
    By 2023, the City of Orinda, bloody but unbowed, decided that it was time to pursue more economic development measures.
    When Hughes took over as Associate Planner in May 2024, part of his “hat” was to go into the community and talk with various property owners to see how to bring people back into downtown Orinda.
    “For the most part,” Hughes said, “it’s just getting ears out to have a good understanding of what’s going on, but wherever I can find opportunities to network people together and get them working on something, that’s what I tend to try to do.”
    He began by talking to several Theatre Square tenants. All of them were very impressed by last October’s Lamorinda Arts Council’s annual Art of Mixology event, where around 20 professional and amateur mixologists competed for cash and prizes, and ticket holders sampled at least 15 “luscious craft cocktails and mocktails” along with bites from local restaurants.
    The 2023 fundraiser, attended by 275 people, raised $15,000 and proved that Orindans are ready to welcome the good times back to Theatre Square. This year’s mixology event – the 11th since it began, although some were forced to go virtual – takes place on Oct. 19, from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Full details can be found at lamorindaarts.org/mixology/.
    Meanwhile, on the other side of town, business owners at Country Club Plaza were also interested in brainstorming with Hughes and it was there, one Saturday morning, that he ran across Taylor Marlatte, who owns the Bay Area Makers’ Market – or BAMM, as her t-shirt proudly declares.
    All the East Bay businesses that Marlatte supports are locally owned, mainly by women. Participating vendors offer self-care items, hand-crafted creations, various jewelry options – including permanent jewelry – packaged foods, pottery and more. 
    Hughes mentioned that it would be nice to see something similar in Theatre Square and told Marlatte that while “there’s no retail over there right now, it gets active on Fridays.”
    As the two talked, they gradually came to the conclusion that what Theatre Square really needed was a night market, preferably on a Friday, when surrounding restaurants are at their busiest.
    The idea of naming the monthly event the “Orinda First Friday” was Hughes’ idea, although he says he initially wanted to call it the Orinda Night Market, “because you’d know exactly what you’re getting into.”
    However, he later decided that First Friday would also work “because we’re hoping to see it expand beyond the market.”
    “Either way,” he says, “We’re looking at First Fridays being a positive resource for the community.”
    So far, Theatre Square has hosted First Fridays in May, June and August this year. Since there was very little publicity in the early months, each proved to be a delightful find for anyone stumbling upon them as they made their way to or from restaurants.
    Serendipity at its finest!
    The upcoming night market on Sept. 6 is expected to be the best so far, with a variety of tables, all offering unique, well-crafted items. And provided you don’t decide to keep them all for yourself, you’ll be ahead of the game when you get out the wrapping paper in December. One outlet even offers that rare commodity, nipple butter.
    Now where else in Orinda would you expect to find that?