Lamorinda Farmers Markets — Orinda, Moraga, and Where Lafayette Goes

Lamorinda farmers market

The honest answer first, because everyone asks: there is no Lafayette Farmers Market. The original Lafayette Farmers Market closed for good on Labor Day 2013. Locals who want a Saturday market drive five minutes to Orinda. Locals who want a Sunday market drive five minutes to Moraga. The total absence of a Lafayette market is one of the small, persistent oddities of life in the largest of the three Lamorinda towns — and it’s also why the Orinda and Moraga markets are larger and more entrenched than they would otherwise need to be. They serve all of Lamorinda.

Here’s the practical guide to both markets, what each one is actually good for, and how to plan a weekend morning around them.

The Two Markets, Side by Side

	Orinda Farmers Market	Moraga Farmers Market
Day	Saturday	Sunday
Hours	9 AM – 1 PM	9 AM – 1 PM
Season	Year-round	Year-round
Location	Orinda Way, in front of Rite Aid and Orinda Community Park	Moraga Center, corner of Moraga Road & Moraga Way
Operator	Contra Costa Certified Farmers’ Markets (CCCFM)	California Farmers’ Markets Association (CFMA)
Size	~25–35 vendors	40+ farmers and vendors
Parking	Community Center lot, on-street, Theatre Square garage	Moraga Center lot
Best paired with	Coffee + a walk through Orinda Village	Brunch + the Lafayette-Moraga Trail

Both markets are certified farmers’ markets — meaning vendors must be the actual producers, not resellers. Both run year-round. Both accept CalFresh/EBT and WIC. Neither is a “tourist” market — they are for the people who live here.

Orinda Farmers Market (Saturday)

When: Saturdays, 9 AM to 1 PM, year-round
Where: Orinda Way, between Santa Maria Way and the Community Park (in front of Rite Aid)
Operator: Contra Costa Certified Farmers’ Markets — a 501(c)(5) non-profit, now celebrating over 25 years on this site
Address shortcut: 26 Orinda Way, Orinda, CA 94563

The Orinda market sits on Orinda Way at the western edge of Orinda Village, with the Community Park directly behind it. The market itself is a single linear stretch of tents — easy to walk in fifteen minutes, easy to spend ninety minutes in. The crowd is a mix of Orinda regulars, Moraga families crossing town on Saturday morning, and a smaller contingent of Lafayette residents who have made Saturday-Orinda a weekly rhythm.

What it’s known for:

Live music at the central tent through most of the season — usually a single acoustic act, the kind of thing where you stop for two songs before moving on.
A strong stone fruit lineup through summer (June through September) — Brentwood peaches, apricots, nectarines, the last of the cherries in June.
Local honey, olive oil, and preserves — the kind of pantry staples that are genuinely better than the supermarket version and not much more expensive.
The information booth with free copies of Edible East Bay and current vendor lists.

Practical notes:

Park in the Orinda Community Park lot directly behind the market, or in the Theatre Square garage and walk over (about three minutes). Street parking on Orinda Way fills up by 9:15.
The market is dog-friendly on leash — well-behaved dogs are welcome, but the central produce aisle gets crowded by 10 AM. Earlier is easier with a dog.
BART-accessible — Orinda BART is a ten-minute walk if you’re coming from Berkeley or the city.
The Orinda Theatre is across the freeway in Theatre Square if you want to make a morning of it: coffee → market → matinee.

Best time to go: 9:00–9:45 AM. The vendors are stocked, the crowd is thin, and you can still ask the peach guy which variety is at peak this week without holding up a line.

Moraga Farmers Market (Sunday)

When: Sundays, 9 AM to 1 PM, year-round
Where: Moraga Center, corner of Moraga Road and Moraga Way
Operator: California Farmers’ Markets Association (CFMA)
Address shortcut: Moraga Center, 1480 Moraga Road, Moraga, CA 94556

The Moraga market is larger than the Orinda market (40+ vendors versus ~25–35) and feels more like a destination Sunday morning than a quick stop. It’s laid out around the Moraga Center parking lot, with vendors in a U-shape and prepared-food carts at one end. The crowd is heavier on families — strollers, school-age kids, a strong “post-soccer-practice breakfast” demographic — and the social density is real. You will run into people you know.

What it’s known for:

Seasonal kid events — the Halloween Harvest Festival, the Easter Egg Hunt, the Grape Escape in early fall, the costume parade. These are genuine local traditions, not marketing.
A prepared-food row — tamales, baked goods, pupusas, coffee, fresh juice — that makes it easy to turn the market into brunch on the spot.
40+ vendors including some that don’t appear at the Orinda market — broader cheese selection, more flower vendors, occasional pasture-raised meat and seafood stalls.
The post-market walk — many families finish the market, grab a coffee at Si Si Caffé or a pastry at Town Bakery, and walk it off on the Lafayette-Moraga Trail (the trail’s western terminus is a five-minute walk from the market).

Practical notes:

Park in the Moraga Center lot directly adjacent to the market. Overflow parking in the Rheem Center lot a few minutes’ drive away.
Bring cash and cards — most vendors take both, but some of the smaller producers are cash-preferred.
CalFresh/EBT and WIC accepted — the market participates in the Market Match program.
The market shares its weekend with the Sunday-morning Saint Mary’s College campus walk, the Lafayette-Moraga Trail bike traffic, and the post-church coffee crowd at Loard’s Ice Cream (open by 11 AM). It is the busiest hour of the Moraga week.

Best time to go: 9:00–10:00 AM for serious shopping; 10:00–11:30 AM for the social brunch-and-browse rhythm; after 12:30 PM for end-of-market discounts on bread and produce (vendors prefer to sell down rather than pack up).

What’s in Season (June 2026)

Right now, both markets are in the late-spring-to-early-summer transition:

Stone fruit arriving: First Brentwood apricots and the earliest peaches (Snow Queen, Spring Lady varieties). Late Brooks and Bing cherries still around — they tail off mid-June.
Strawberries deep into second flush: The April-planted rows are producing through June. The June berries are smaller and more concentrated in flavor than the May ones.
Asparagus and English peas: Last call. Local asparagus winds down by mid-June.
Tomatoes still a few weeks out: Hothouse tomatoes are around, but field tomatoes don’t peak in the East Bay until late July through September.
Flowers: Peonies, ranunculus, the first dahlias of the year. The flower stalls at both markets are at their early-summer best.

Why There’s No Lafayette Farmers Market

The original Lafayette Farmers Market ran for years and closed for good on Labor Day 2013, citing declining vendor participation and the rise of nearby year-round markets (specifically Orinda, Walnut Creek, and Moraga). There have been occasional pop-up and seasonal market efforts in Lafayette since — the Shoppes at Lafayette has hosted summer-evening market events, and various civic groups have floated revival ideas — but no permanent weekly Lafayette Farmers Market currently operates.

The practical result: Lafayette residents who want a weekly farmers market split between Saturday-Orinda and Sunday-Moraga. Many do both, treating it as a two-stop weekly produce run, with Saturday Orinda for the early stone fruit and meat vendors and Sunday Moraga for the broader selection and the social brunch. This is the established Lamorinda pattern.

If you live in Lafayette and the absence of a hometown market bothers you, your closest weekday alternatives are Whole Foods at 3502 Mt Diablo Blvd (daily) and Diablo Foods at 3615 Mt Diablo Blvd (daily) — both of which carry strong local-producer selections and have absorbed much of the weekday “I just want good produce” demand that a Lafayette market would otherwise serve.

The Weekend-Morning Game Plan

If you want to do this properly on a single weekend in early summer:

Saturday — Orinda Market morning

8:30 AM — Coffee at Shelby’s or one of the Theatre Square cafes.
9:00–10:00 AM — Walk the Orinda market end-to-end. Buy stone fruit, flowers, honey.
10:15 AM — Quick walk through the Community Park behind the market; the playground is empty before 10:30.
10:45 AM — Drive home with the produce. Total time: under two hours.

Sunday — Moraga Market morning

8:45 AM — Park at Moraga Center.
9:00–10:30 AM — Market browse, including a pastry-and-coffee stop at the prepared-food row.
10:45 AM — Walk the western stretch of the Lafayette-Moraga Trail — 15-20 minutes out, 15-20 minutes back.
12:00 PM — Late brunch or a slow scoop at Loard’s on the way back to the car.

You will have spent your weekend at both markets, walked one trail, eaten two meals out, and brought home enough local produce to anchor the entire next week of cooking. This is the model. Most Lamorinda households who use the markets seriously settle into some version of it.

A Note on the Second Weekend of June

The second weekend of June is, every year, the busiest weekend of the year at the Orinda Saturday market — by a meaningful margin. Acalanes graduates Friday night, Campolindo Saturday night, and the Saturday-morning market becomes the single most efficient staging ground in Lamorinda for the wave of afternoon and Sunday graduation parties. Strawberries, flowers, and bread sell out a full hour earlier than normal. The cheese guy doubles his board sales. The grain-free granola stand has the slowest Saturday of its year.

If you’re hosting a grad party this weekend: get to the market by 9:15 sharp. If you’re not: come at 11:30 for the calm, the kettle corn, and a remarkable amount of leftover lavender. See the Orinda Farmers Market on Graduation Saturday field report for the full anthropology.