Danville Boulevard Doesn't Look Like You Remember It

Ask a longtime Alamo resident where to eat on Danville Boulevard and you'll probably hear the same two or three names come up automatically. Peasant's Courtyard for a long lunch. Forli's if you want a glass of wine and someone playing guitar in the corner. Say those names out loud today and you're pointing at businesses that no longer exist. One closed in April and reopened under a different name the very next morning. The other is mid-renovation right now, with a sign in the window promising something new.

Here's the part that makes this worth writing about instead of just noting: Danville Boulevard doesn't usually turn over like this. The building that housed Peasant's Courtyard had exactly one name for nearly 25 years before that, and one name after. Two restaurant identities in over 40 years is not a corridor that reinvents itself every few seasons. So when two of its longest-tenured anchors change hands in the same twelve months, that's not background noise. That's the story.

The Building That Only Had Two Names

The address is 3195 Danville Boulevard. Before 2009, it was Courtyard Cafe, and it held that name for close to 25 years. Chef Rodney Worth took over the space in August 2009 and ran it as The Peasant's Courtyard for the next 17 years. That's a restaurant most Alamo residents grew up eating at, closing for good on April 19, 2026, and reopening the very next day as The Courtyard Restaurant under entirely new ownership.

The new owners aren't strangers to the area. They're the family behind East Bay Artisan, the bakery you've probably bought bread from without knowing the name, since it's a regular at the Danville farmers market on Saturdays. This is their first storefront in the San Ramon Valley, though they also run Cafe 1277 inside the Treat Towers office building in Walnut Creek. According to their own statement announcing the change, they kept some familiar staff on while bringing in a new chef and a new menu, with the fuller picture of what they were building coming into focus in the weeks after the April changeover.

Worth, for his part, isn't leaving the restaurant business. He still runs The Peasant & The Pear in downtown Danville and The Bourbon Pear in downtown Livermore. His Walnut Creek spot, The Little Pear, closed this past January after less than three years. He's also got The Golden Pear in the works inside Rossmoor, though as of this spring renovations had been dragging on for months with no opening date set.

If you're the type who orders the same thing every time you sit down at a familiar table, this is your notice: that table has new owners, a new chef, and by now, a menu that's had months to settle into whatever it's going to be.

Forli's Corner Is Still Under Wraps

The second change is happening about a third of a mile down the same street, at 3160 Danville Boulevard in the Stone Valley Center, near the CVS. This was Forli Ristorante for decades, an Italian restaurant known as much for its bar and live entertainment as for its food. That space has now closed, and signs have gone up for a new concept called The Post.

As of early August, the project was still very much under construction. A reader who spotted the signage noticed workers inside past 8:30 at night, which suggests the timeline is tight but not finished. The Post describes itself as American comfort food built around the idea of an early-1900s post office, and public business filings tie the project to a company called Alamo Restaurant & Bar Group LLC, formed in September 2025. Ali Reza Ghasemi is listed as CEO, with Danville-based Lala Hospitality Inc. serving as manager.

The practical takeaway if you're planning a night out: don't drive over expecting a soft opening. As of the most recent report, the restaurant's own website still had placeholder pricing and generic menu items that read like unfinished template text rather than an actual menu. This one is coming, but it isn't here yet.

The One Sunday That Hasn't Moved an Inch

Set against all of that turnover, the Alamo Certified Farmers Market hasn't budged. It's still every Sunday at 120 Alamo Plaza, in the Bank of America parking lot, and it runs year round regardless of what's happening a few blocks over on Danville Boulevard. Through late September it's on summer hours, 9am to 1pm, before shifting back to the longer 9am to 2pm window for the rest of the year.

What's interesting is how the market handles its own small-scale change. Vendors rotate in and out constantly, a new empanada stand showing up in June, a new dip-and-chips vendor added by late July. But the structure underneath never wavers. Same lot, same day, same hours, the same short list of Alamo staples like Pete's Gold Honey and Achadihna Cheese Co. showing up week after week. It's the version of change that doesn't register as change at all, which is exactly why it makes such a useful contrast to what's happening a few blocks away.

There's also a direct line between this kind of market stall and one of the restaurant stories above. East Bay Artisan, the bakery now running The Courtyard Restaurant, built its name selling bread at Bay Area farmers markets, including the Danville market every Saturday, before ever opening a storefront. If you've picked up a loaf from their table on a Saturday morning somewhere in the valley, you already have a relationship with the same people now serving dinner on Danville Boulevard.

Planning Your Weekend Around What's Actually Open

If you're mapping out where to eat this week, here's where things stand. The Courtyard Restaurant is open now, several months into its new run, with enough time behind it that the early-May uncertainty its owners mentioned should have resolved into a real identity. The Post is not open yet, and based on the pace of the renovation as of early August, it's worth checking before you make a reservation you can't confirm. Round Table Pizza at 150 Alamo Plaza, a short walk from the market and a popular stop for anyone coming off the Iron Horse Trail, hasn't changed at all and isn't going anywhere.

None of this means Alamo is becoming a different place. It means one specific street had an unusually compressed year, two multi-decade tenants changing hands within months of each other, while the rhythm underneath, the Sunday market, the trail, the pizza place that's been there as long as anyone can remember, kept running exactly as it always has. That's a useful thing to know the next time someone suggests meeting up at the old spot. Ask which old spot they mean.

If you're weighing a move to Alamo or thinking about what a house here is actually worth in a market that changes at its own pace, Jeff Snell has spent years watching this town up close, including the parts that show up in day-to-day life rather than listing sheets. Reach out for a local market consultation or grab a free home valuation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.