Reasons I Love Orinda – June 2025

    There are the obvious reasons to love our hometown, with its abundant natural beauty and small town vibe, but what really makes Orinda special are a million little things that knit together to create this place we call home.
    This new column will explore one reason every month.
    Loard’s Ice Cream, with its quintessential yesteryear charm, has become the heart of Orinda. The familiar pink and white banquettes and vintage parlor chairs are where folks young and old gravitate to slow down for a moment, visit and enjoy consistently delicious ice cream.
    Rows of glass jars filled with candy line the back counter, and black-and-white photos of Orinda long before there were traffic lights hang proudly on the walls. In the same storefront for the last 73 years, Loard’s is frozen in time in the best possible way.
    The current owners, Larry and Diane Haydon, take their stewardship of this local treasure seriously.
    Larry first started going when he was just three years old, and both marvel at the fact that generations of families love Loard’s as much as they do. They are proud that their business is where you run into old friends, cap off a team’s win or loss, and where college students lobby to get their jobs back when they return for summer.
    Staff are trained by the Haydons to make sure a visit isn’t just about the product. “We teach employees to scoop the joy, then scoop the ice cream,” said Diane.
    A polaroid camera is always on hand for customers to take a photo and pin it to a display board. When the photo board is out of space, the Haydon’s transfer the photographs to albums kept in the shop.
    “It commemorates the fun, the kids love to find themselves in the photos,” she said. “They feel more a part of it.”