Mill Valley Market — Restaurant in Golden Valley

My family and I live nearby and this was one of our favorite spots to go to for a low-key breakfast in a beautiful park setting. There's plenty of seating inside, and on nice days, it's always easy to find a spot on the patio to sip coffee and take in the scenery before heading out for a walk.

That being said, I will say that the menu/food has really taken a steep nosedive. It seemed like it was kind of steadily declining, but we went this weekend and we were left feeling so utterly disappointed and realized there really isn't much left at this cafe anymore.

First off, the menu has really been pared down. Neither of the two dishes we always order (the Belgian waffle and the Huevos Rancheros) are available anymore. I get that menus change over time, but now there aren't even many options. I reluctantly ordered the avocado toast.

When the food was ready, I was served some oily scrambled eggs piled high on a piece of toast with no avocado. I brought it back to the window, and the server ascribed it to the fact that the cook is new. Then they brought my tray back with 4 small slices of avocado fanned out on top of the toast and eggs, with the avocado slices being primarily brown. Not like it had browned a little from being sliced earlier in the morning, but more like the avocado was way past its prime and nearly rotten.

The slice of toast was made from good sourdough bread, but the slice was so thick and crusty and chewy that the plastic cutlery was unable to cut it at all. The whole thing was very awkward to eat, and really flavorless as I don't think any salt was even used in preparing this. The fruit cup on the side was almost entirely cantaloupe.

To say that we left feeling disappointed is such an understatement. This was once our favorite place, and to see it go downhill like this is really disheartening. I can't really see us coming back again after our most recent experience. It just makes me feel so sad that it has come to this. Looking at people's old Google review photos of what the food used to look like is such a stark contrast to...

So sad what has happened to this place- seems the owner doesn’t see the value in continuing to invest?

We’ve been coming here on average every week since we moved to the area 4 years ago. Easy mid-week dinners. A snack after a hike. Bringing friends and family from out of town for a wonderful patio dinner with live music. A drink after a ride with friends. I was very proud to have this in my neighborhood and bring others here. And there really aren’t many restaurants in this area so it was the most convenient place. It’s a beautiful building with a view of the park. The food was great and the service was fast and friendly.

Maybe 1.5 years ago our favorite manager left (his name was Will and he always took such good care of us and our dog- all of the sudden we didn’t see him anymore) and we noticed then that the service just tanked. The food was slower. Poorer quality. And the staff were getting more and more rude or just unfriendly. We started coming less, but still fairly frequently. Maybe went from 2x/week down to 1.

Now they have drastically cut down the menu such that they aren’t serving much in the way of cooked meals. We almost never go there anymore cause all we really would want to buy that’s worth it are sweet potato fries. I miss how it used to be!

I really don’t know what the plan is for this place- I wish they would have just cut down on their hours. They are open every day 8am- 8pm and earlier/later on weekdays…. Which is crazy to me. If they made all these changes due to finances, I would have started there and made hours 4-9pm or something. It’s especially odd that they did this right as winter started- which is the busiest time of year at Theo with skiing.

I think these changes will really affect the vibe of the Trailhead and the area. Please come back Mill Valley Market! Or maybe leave and make room for...

I recently hosted a wedding at the Trailhead, where Mill Valley is the sole preferred caterer. I didn’t know what to expect.

Turns out everything went swimmingly from when I first started talking to manager Alex Wright about a year ago to the big event. The food was fantastic. We actually had several guests remark how it was the best wedding food they've ever had because the ingredients were so fresh and the tenderloin cooked especially well.

Alex also helped me create an off-menu grazing, which the guests happily eviscerated. Mill Valley was flexible with our wanting to use an outside bakery of our choice and adding vegetarian meals to our package.

Different from other wedding caterers, Mill Valley doesn’t currently do tastings ahead of time, so required us to trust that everything would be fine. Thankfully it all turned great. We’ll be returning to the Trailhead often during mountain biking and cross country skiing seasons to support Mill Valley’s...