Things to Do in Moraga This Summer: What Locals Want

Drive past 1419 Moraga Way this month and you'll see butcher paper taped over the windows where La Finestra's dining room used to glow. For years, that was the spot across from the Safeway at Moraga Shopping Center where you'd hear a piano drifting out the door most evenings, Bob Athayde working through a set while people worked through plates of Sicilian seafood. Now there's a hand-painted sign promising burgers, shakes, and an arcade. The change is from a Sicilian dining room to a burgers-and-arcade concept.

La Finestra had been part of Lamorinda's dining scene since 1999, moving from its original Lafayette location to Moraga in October 2018. As Bay Area Telegraph reported, it closed in June after chef-owner Jeff Assadi said the rising cost of running the business had made it impossible to continue. That's a familiar refrain in restaurant news everywhere, and it would be easy to file this under "sign of the times" and move on. The new tenant introduces a different concept as the town heads into the Pear and Wine Festival next month.

Wayside Social's New Concept

It's the work of a local restaurateur named Rojas. In late 2023, he opened La Chamba Taqueria at Rheem Valley Shopping Center, serving tacos, birria, and other dishes built in part on recipes passed down from his mother. He's described it as a relaxed neighborhood spot where residents can get a good meal without fuss, and it stuck. Rojas moved to Moraga in 2018 after roughly two decades in real estate, which means he's watched this market from two very different vantage points now.

Signage at the Wayside Social site confirms burgers, fries, shakes, soft serve, and alcohol, along with an arcade component that reads less like a restaurant and more like a hangout with a kitchen attached. An opening date and full menu haven't been announced yet.

The Moraga Summer Concert Series

The Moraga Summer Concert Series, a tradition the Moraga Park Foundation has run since 1984, wrapped its Thursday-night run on August 20 with a Fleetwood Mac tribute act called Fleetwood Mask. The lineup for the closing stretch looked like this:

• July 30: The Hitmen (funk, soul, disco, Latin)
• August 6: Lamorinda Idols (local youth vocalists) and Big Blu Soul Revue
• August 13: Dream Like Taylor and Cassie B
• August 20: Fleetwood Mask

Every show in the Thursday-night run was free at Moraga Commons Park from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., funded entirely by public donations and local businesses and community groups rather than ticket sales. Loard's ice cream served from the lawn at every concert in that run. The Moraga Lions and Moraga Kiwanis clubs poured beer and wine. Penninis sold pizza by the slice from the bandshell, and food trucks from Taste of the World Market and Ofie's Kitchen filled in the rest. You brought a blanket and showed up.

But the August 20 show wasn't the last concert of the year. The Foundation counts twelve shows for its 2026 season, and the twelfth one hasn't happened yet. It's folded into the Pear and Wine Festival on September 26, alongside the Foundation's traditional pie sales.

The Moraga Farmers' Market

Every Sunday near Commons Park, more than 40 local farmers and food purveyors set up for the Moraga Farmers' Market from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. This isn't a seasonal pop-up that disappears after Labor Day. It runs on a standing weekly rhythm serving Moraga, Lafayette, and Orinda, with recurring events including a Halloween Harvest Festival and an egg hunt in spring.

The Pear and Wine Festival

Moraga's answer to a fall harvest festival lands on September 26 this year, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., built around the town's history of pear orchards and grape harvests. It's a Saturday event with children's activities, community booths, pear pies, and the season's final concert folded in as a bonus. There's no cover charge to walk the grounds. You pay for what you want to eat, and otherwise the day is yours.

If you're the kind of person who tracks this stuff because you live here and you're curious, keep an eye on Wayside Social's opening date. And if you find yourself at the Pear and Wine Festival on September 26, Concert #12 will close out the season after the Thursday-night run ended five weeks earlier.

If you're weighing what any of this means for property values or timing a move in or out of Moraga, that's a longer conversation, and it's one Woehrle Real Estate and Development has been having with Lamorinda families for years. Reach out when you're ready to talk specifics.