The Burger Joint Replacing La Finestra Is Moving Faster Than Moraga's Own Redevelopment Plan

Drive down Moraga Way past the old La Finestra space and you will see butcher paper still taped inside the windows, but also glimpses of arcade cabinets being wheeled in. Head the other direction toward Rheem Valley, and the CVS storefront now wears fresh white and golden-brown paint with gold lettering spelling out each tenant's name. Both are signs of change. Only one of them needed a town hall meeting to happen.

Moraga has two commercial strips, half a mile apart, and this year they are proving two very different theories about how a small town actually redevelops. One is getting help from a $60,000 consulting contract, a town-mandated facelift, and a national grocery chain's lease. The other is getting help from a single local restaurateur who decided to bet on burgers and pinball.

Two Shopping Centers, Two Different Engines

Rheem Valley Shopping Center, anchored by CVS, TJ Maxx, and the Rheem Theatre on Moraga Road, is the strip getting the institutional treatment. Town Manager Scott Mitnick told the Town Council in June that "this community is clamoring for positive redevelopment," and the town backed that up in January by signing U.S. Realty Partners' shopping center up for a one-year, $60,000 advisory agreement with Kosmont Companies to help facilitate private investment there, according to Lamorinda Weekly's reporting.

The original Moraga Shopping Center downtown, the one with the Safeway near where La Finestra used to sit, has gotten none of that. Mayor Kerry Hillis said as much at a February council meeting, and his frustration was pointed enough that Lamorinda Weekly ran it nearly verbatim:

"We are all tired of beating our heads against the wall and begging the owners to participate in capitalism and making multiple future generations of their family extravagantly wealthy. That is not our job."

Hillis noted that the town had already upzoned the downtown parcels, adding tens of millions and potentially hundreds of millions in value, according to Lamorinda Weekly, with no redevelopment to show for it. Whatever is changing at that end of town is not coming from the property owners.

What Actually Finished First

Here is the part that catches people off guard if they have only been half-following the Rheem Valley news. The façade work is done. The scaffolding came down over the summer, rotting wood got repaired, and the chocolate brown and dark green paint scheme gave way to white and gold. That part of the plan moved on schedule.

The anchor everyone was actually waiting for did not.

U.S. Realty Partners' Director of Construction, Susana Jagodzinski, told Lamorinda Weekly in June that the team had "been diligently trying to move construction forward as quickly as possible," but the 17,404-square-foot building was still short of even having its shell finished by the original mid-2026 target. By the time the July facade story ran, the grand opening had quietly slid to early 2027, more than a year past the groundbreaking ceremony.

That is not unusual for grocery construction generally, but it is a useful data point locally: the visible, cosmetic parts of a redevelopment plan can finish well before the part that actually changes how people shop. If you have been waiting for Rheem to feel different because of the grocery store, the paint job got there first, and it is not close.

One Restaurateur Doing What City Hall Couldn't

Meanwhile, across town, Ben Rojas did not wait for anyone's advisory contract. Rojas opened La Chamba Taqueria at Rheem Valley Shopping Center in late 2023, building a following for a menu built in part on his mother's recipes. He moved to Moraga with his family in 2018 after spending roughly two decades working in real estate, which means he has watched both ends of this town's retail story from the inside.

When La Finestra closed in June 2026, after chef-owner Jeff Assadi said rising operating costs had made the restaurant impossible to sustain, Rojas moved fast. He confirmed to Bay Area Telegraph that he is taking over the 1419 Moraga Way space and turning it into something called Wayside Social, a burger restaurant with its own arcade. "I'm taking over the old La Finestra and turning it into a burger joint with an arcade," he said.

La Finestra itself had a longer story than most people knew. It opened in Lafayette in 1999, then relocated to Moraga in 2018 after its original Lafayette location was destroyed in the 2017 Lafayette Circle fire. For eight years it was one of the more prominent white-tablecloth spots in town, directly across from the Safeway at the downtown Moraga Shopping Center. Its closure left a gap in a building that a lot of longtime residents associate with a specific kind of night out.

Wayside Social will not replace that exact experience, and it does not need a Kosmont contract or a council vote to open. It needs a lease, a build-out, and a restaurateur who already has one Moraga concept working. As of early August, an opening date and full menu had not been announced, but the early renderings show a colorful, casual space built for families, a sharp turn from the room it is replacing.

What Else Is Actually Changing at Rheem

The Grocery Outlet slip does not mean nothing else is moving on that side of town. A few other pieces are worth tracking if you are watching Rheem specifically:

• A Chipotle is confirmed to replace the old Bank of America ATM machine, per Mitnick's June economic development report.
• The Saint Mary's College Rheem Campus is now on the market, with Kosmont in early discussions with the college about redevelopment. SMC is reportedly interested in adding on-campus housing and wants the surrounding area to look more inviting to help attract students.
• Kosmont's senior advisor, Dean Isaacs, singled out U.S. Realty Partners for being unusually willing to cooperate with the town, noting the company owns shopping centers statewide but has never built one with attached housing. If that happens at Rheem, it would be a first for the company, not just for Moraga.

Any one of these could move the needle more than the grocery store does once it finally opens.

What This Means If You're Driving Through This Fall

If you live on the Rheem side of town, the facelift is already done and worth noticing next time you park at CVS. The Chipotle signage is the next thing to watch for, and the Grocery Outlet is not opening this year, full stop, regardless of what the original groundbreaking timeline suggested.

If you live closer to downtown, the Wayside Social build-out is the only visible sign of investment on that side right now, and it is happening because one local business owner made a call, not because the property owners across from him have changed their approach. The mayor's comments in February suggest that dynamic is not shifting on its own anytime soon.

Two shopping centers, four minutes apart by car, moving at completely different speeds for completely different reasons. That gap is the actual Moraga story this fall, more than any single opening date.

For homeowners and buyers who want a clear-eyed read on how these kinds of neighborhood shifts affect value in Lamorinda, Brian Rochford and the team at Rochford Real Estate Company track this corridor closely. Request a complimentary market evaluation to talk through what's actually changing on your block, not just what's on the sign out front.