If you've been showing up to the Alamo farmers market at 1:45 hoping to grab the last of the stone fruit, you've probably noticed the tables are already folding. That's not a vendor running early. The market shifted to summer hours in late June, and the closing time everyone in town has known for years, 2 p.m., is temporarily an hour shorter. It's a small thing. It's also one of three changes happening in Alamo at once right now, and together they say something about how a town this compact actually works.
The Sunday you might be getting wrong
The Alamo Certified Farmers Market has run every Sunday, year round, in the Bank of America parking lot at Alamo Plaza since long before most current residents moved in. The state's own registry of certified farmers markets lists the Alamo CFM at 120 Alamo Plaza, managed by Heather Harlow, open Sundays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., year round. That's the standing schedule. But starting June 28 and running through September 27, the market has been closing an hour early, at 1 p.m. instead of 2, a seasonal adjustment that isn't obvious unless you're reading the weekly vendor post rather than an old bookmark or a static listing.
The vendor lineup has also turned over more than a casual shopper would expect for a market this size. The market's own weekly Patch recap named Crazy Empanadas as a brand-new vendor in June, joining a rotating cast of regulars like Achadihna Cheese Co. and Bay Area Harvest that show up week after week. None of that made the local news. It shows up only in the market's own weekly vendor post, the kind of detail you'd only track if you were actually going most Sundays.
If your Sunday routine still assumes a 2 p.m. close, you're planning around a schedule that won't return until late September. And if you've ever assumed the market goes dark for part of the year, it doesn't. The state registry lists it as running year round, table by table, all fifty-two Sundays.
The kitchen at 3195 Danville Boulevard has new owners, not new paint
The other change worth knowing sits at the opposite end of the same short commercial strip. The last day in business for the Peasant's Courtyard in Alamo was set for April 19, 2026, and it was rebranded under new ownership as The Courtyard Restaurant starting the next day. If you glanced at the new sign and assumed a rebrand, a same-owner refresh with a new coat of paint, that's not what happened. This has been portrayed as a rebrand or a simple change of ownership, but the Courtyard Restaurant has totally new owners, a new name, a new chef, and will soon have a new menu.
The new operator has a name locals will recognize from Saturday mornings. The family behind the East Bay Artisan bakery business, known for selling its baked goods at farmers markets in the area including Danville every Saturday, made its first brick-and-mortar move into the San Ramon Valley with this space. The kitchen is now run by chef Jourdan De Sanctis, who was previously associated with Danville Brewing and Norm's Place, giving the new restaurant a chef with local experience and ties to well-known East Bay spots. One familiar face stayed behind the counter through the change: Sandy, a beloved member of the Peasant's Courtyard team, is staying on, along with other staff members.
The transition wasn't abrupt for regulars either. Courtyard Restaurant temporarily kept the Peasant's Courtyard menu through May 4, after which the restaurant planned to roll out its own new seasonal menu. By July, review activity on Yelp suggested the new phase had arrived, with one diner writing that the space was "now open for dinner" and noting a well shaded patio, on a page last updated that month. If you haven't been back since spring, the food on the table tonight has little to do with what you remember from a year ago. The same family also has a second project in motion nearby: the Worth Group is poised to open The Golden Pear in Rossmoor, though a debut date hasn't been confirmed, with renovations ongoing for most of the year so far.
One plaza is still doing most of the work
Here's the part that connects the market and the restaurant to something bigger. Alamo doesn't have a downtown in the way Danville or Walnut Creek does. It's an unincorporated community, and its entire commercial identity runs through one shopping center. According to the Danville Area Chamber of Commerce, that center is anchored by Safeway and Rite Aid, with a lineup of more than 35 merchants including Bank of America, Livermore Cyclery, Panera Bread, Peet's Coffee, Orangetheory, and Round Table Pizza.
That list is effectively the town's entire commercial menu: banking, groceries, coffee, a bike shop, and casual dining pulled into one parking lot instead of spread across a downtown grid. There's no second shopping district to absorb a closure or a new opening. Whatever happens at this one address is, functionally, what happens to Alamo's retail options that season.
The plaza's owner has been investing in the space since acquiring it a few years back. According to EDENS, the current property manager, the center totals more than 200,000 square feet and has been undergoing a multi-year revitalization since 2022, including a mural project called "Tunnel of Love, Welcome to Beautiful Alamo, California" by the Oakland-based creative collective ABG Art Group. Alamo has no town-limit sign the way an incorporated city would post one at its border. The back wall of a grocery-anchored parking lot has effectively become the closest thing the town has to a formal welcome.
Here's the short version of what changed and when:
Change | Timing |
|---|---|
Peasant's Courtyard becomes The Courtyard Restaurant | Last service April 19, reopened April 20 |
Farmers market summer hours (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) | June 28 through September 27 |
Livorna Park summer concert series | Four Fridays, July 10 through July 31 |
July's four Fridays, and the trail that never needed a sign
The concert series just wrapped. Per Contra Costa's community event calendar, the Alamo Municipal Advisory Council presented this year's Summer Concert Series on Fridays at Livorna Park, Livorna Road and Miranda Avenue: The Sun Kings opened with a Beatles tribute on July 10, followed by Fourjour's tribute to 80s arena rock, the Highway Vagabonds playing a country set, and a Fog City Swampers classic-rock closer on July 31. Free admission, no city parks department involved, because there isn't one. An advisory council organized four evenings of live music for a town that has no mayor's office to write the check. That's worth knowing not because the series is still running, it isn't, but because it says something about how Alamo gets things done without the machinery a bigger city takes for granted.
The same logic applies to a trailhead most residents drive past without a second look: Macedo Ranch, at the western foot of Mount Diablo State Park. Bay Nature has described it as a spot that isn't advertised much, with no sign directing drivers down the residential street where it sits, yet a favorite for locals in the know, including equestrians, mountain bikers, and runners. The Mount Diablo Interpretive Association lists the day-use fee at $6 per car, cash only, the same rate charged at the park's Mitchell Canyon entrance on the opposite side of the mountain. It's the same pattern as the plaza and the market: small, functional, and easy to miss unless you're already paying attention.
None of these changes are headline news on their own. A restaurant changed hands. A market shifted its Sunday close by an hour for the summer. A concert series played its four dates and ended. But Alamo is small enough, and its commercial footprint compact enough, that each one registers more than it would somewhere with a bigger downtown to absorb it. If you're timing a market run before September 27, aim for before 1, not 2. If you're heading to Danville Boulevard for dinner, know the kitchen and the menu are different from what you remember. That's the whole town's news cycle for the summer, and it's worth knowing before you plan your next Sunday.
The Khrista Jarvis Team keeps a close eye on details like these because we work in the same neighborhoods we write about. If you'd like more of what's actually changing around Alamo, Danville, and the rest of the San Ramon Valley, we're glad to share what we're seeing.
