If you live in Larkspur, you already know the town has two centers of gravity. One sits at Larkspur Landing, where the Marin Country Mart occupies the ground between the ferry terminal and the SMART platform. The other runs a mile inland along Magnolia Avenue, from the Lark Theater down through Picco and Farm House Local. Most summers, those two halves keep to themselves. This one is different.
The Mart has expanded its weekly programming into something closer to a daily rhythm, and Magnolia has quietly assembled the strongest new-operator lineup it has seen in years. For a resident who wants to skip the bridge traffic and stay close, the question is no longer whether there is something to do. It is how to move between the two ends of town without doubling back.
The Saturday Anchor Is Still The Farmers' Market
The Mart's Saturday farmers' market runs 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. rain or shine at 2257 Larkspur Landing Circle, and it remains the busiest hour in town by a wide margin. What has shifted is the density of what surrounds it. Live music now begins at 11, with Mart Littles children's programming starting at 9:30, so families who used to arrive, shop, and leave inside forty minutes are staying past noon.
The vendor list is worth reading before you go rather than sorting through it in person. Alexandre Family Farm, Frog Hollow Farm, Stepladder Creamery, Ramini Mozzarella, Fallon Hills Ranch, Iacopi Farms, and The Happy Dahlia Farm cover most of what a Marin kitchen needs for a Saturday dinner. Prepared food comes from Rustic Bakery, Ethel's Bagels, Casablanca Food Truck, Wafflemania, The Hummus Guy, and Monaco Truffles, among others. Two seafood options, Anna's Seafood and Country Grill, rotate as the market's fish counter.
Fridays And Sundays Have Filled In
For most of the past decade, the Mart was a Saturday-morning destination and a Farmshop-at-night destination, with a quiet middle. That gap is closing. According to Ronnie's Awesome List, July programming at the Mart now includes Just Kids Music on Wednesdays and Fridays, Movie Night on Fridays at 6 p.m., and pony rides every Sunday from 11 to 3 behind Rustic Bakery.
The Friday movie schedule is aimed at families rather than cinephiles, with titles rotating through Toy Story, The Lion King, Coco, The Aristocats, and Babe. July 17 features The Tigger Movie. Bring a blanket; seating is on the lawn.
Every Sunday through year's end, the Mart hosts pony rides for kids behind Rustic Bakery from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is the kind of small, low-key detail that turns a Sunday coffee run into a two-hour outing without anyone planning it that way.
The July weekend calendar also includes one-off events worth flagging. The Wimbledon final weekend runs July 11 and 12, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with matches on the courtyard screen, strawberries and cream, and hosted programming by Marfa Stance and Sunspel. Earlier in the month, on July 1, the Mart aired the USA versus Bosnia and Herzegovina soccer match at 5 p.m. in the courtyard. That kind of unplanned "come watch a game outdoors" programming used to be the province of a sports bar. It now happens at what is technically a shopping center.
Magnolia Is Rebuilding Its Bench
The more interesting story this summer is downtown. Three developments matter.
First, Tavola Rustica, the CAL-Italian restaurant with roots in San Francisco, has opened on Magnolia Avenue in the sunny indoor-outdoor space that used to draw a different crowd. Marin Magazine covered the opening in early June. The menu leans into handmade pastas and a wine list that reflects the owners' San Francisco background, and it has already begun pulling reservations away from the Corte Madera restaurant row.
Second, Restaurant Picco is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. For a Bay Area restaurant to hit twenty in the same location, in the same format, with the same reputation for pizza and small plates, is not a small thing. It is the anchor that lets the rest of the block take swings.
Third, and the reason to pay attention now rather than in the fall, Feerma is under construction on Magnolia. The spring 2026 restaurant roundup from Skall+Glassman describes it as a modern North African-Mediterranean concept from Borhen Hammami, who previously ran the Michelin-recommended Berber in San Francisco. It is taking over the former Don Antonio's space, with a planned opening in summer 2026. In the meantime, the operators are running a Ferma Love coffee cart on site, with pistachio milk and black sesame among the add-ons, which is worth a walk-by if you are already at the Lark Theater or Picco.
There is a pattern here that residents will recognize. Magnolia has spent the past two years shedding tenants that ran on volume and picking up operators whose reputation was built somewhere else. The block is not becoming a food hall. It is becoming a version of Union Street from fifteen years ago, when a handful of chef-owner rooms drew the reservation flow.
What The Two Halves Look Like Together
For a resident deciding how to spend a Saturday, the honest answer is that the walk between the Mart and downtown is longer than most people remember. It is roughly a mile door to door if you cut through the Redwood High School side, and the sidewalk is not continuous. A bike is faster, and the Corte Madera Creek path handles the middle stretch.
That geography is why the two halves of town have historically stayed separate. The interesting shift this summer is that the programming at each end has started to imply the other. If you arrive at the Mart at 9 for the market, do the shopping, catch music at 11, and leave by 12:30, you have the entire afternoon on Magnolia for lunch at Tavola Rustica or Farm House Local, a matinee at the Lark, and a stop at the Ferma Love cart before dinner at Picco.
A Suggested Week
For anyone trying to actually plan around the calendar, here is the shape of a full Larkspur week in July without leaving town.
- Wednesday: Just Kids Music at the Mart, then an early dinner at Farmshop on the Mart courtyard.
- Thursday: A quiet dinner at Tavola Rustica on Magnolia. Reservations are already tightening on OpenTable for weekend slots.
- Friday: Movie Night at the Mart at 6 p.m. Bring a blanket. Pick up dinner from Rustic Bakery or Ethel's Bagels on the way in.
- Saturday: Farmers' market from 9 to noon, then lunch at Perry's on Magnolia or a walk to the Ferma Love coffee cart.
- Saturday evening: Marin Jazz's Hot Club of San Francisco at the Lark Theater, 549 Magnolia Avenue, has been on the summer calendar and is the kind of event that sells through word of mouth rather than paid advertising.
- Sunday: Pony rides behind Rustic Bakery, 11 to 3, then a slow afternoon on Magnolia. Picco takes early Sunday walk-ins better than most weekends.
The week reads like a lot on paper. In practice it is mostly a matter of choosing which end of town to start each day at, because the calendar has finally filled in enough that the choice matters.
Why This Summer Reads Differently
The reason to write any of this down is that Larkspur's summer, for the first time in a while, is not a set of disconnected events. The Mart has committed to weekly programming that treats it as a village center rather than a retail asset. Magnolia has recruited operators whose track record was made in San Francisco fine dining. And the two halves, separated by a mile of creek path and a set of tennis courts, are starting to run on complementary schedules rather than competing ones.
For a resident, that is worth noticing because it changes what a summer weekend looks like without changing anything about where you live. The house is the same. The town around it is doing more work.
If you have been thinking about what your home is worth in a market where the town itself is quietly getting more valuable, Daniel M. Nebenzahl works with Larkspur owners on pricing, positioning, and design-forward preparation. Request Your Home Valuation to start the conversation.
