What's Still Open at Harbor Bay Landing, and Where Bay Farm Eats While It Waits

Bay Farm Island's only shopping center, Harbor Bay Landing at Island Drive and Mecartney Road, now has one grocery store and one sit-down restaurant open. Safeway at 867 Island Drive is open every day from 6 a.m. to midnight. La Penca Azul at 891-B Island Drive has reopened. China Villa next door was still closed in late September, and La Val's Pizza has closed for good, according to the Alameda Post's coverage of the September mayoral forum.

Both the store and the restaurants have struggled this year, but they don't rest on the same footing. The city's zoning requires any redevelopment of this site to include a grocery store. Whether a restaurant can open its doors comes down to what the property owner fixes under the floor. Those two facts account for which doors are open this month and which store the city has worked to keep.

The building at 891 Island Drive

La Val's, La Penca Azul, and China Villa all share one building, 891 Island Drive, which backs onto the lagoon. The Alameda Post's September 4 report pieced together how its summer went:

• January: The Community of Harbor Bay Isle Owners' Association told the city's Public Works Department that raw sewage was collecting near the lagoon behind the building and leaking into it. The city sent the center's property manager, Sequoia Commercial Group, a Notice to Comply. In late January, Code Enforcement also issued a separate Notice of Violation over debris, peeling paint, graffiti, damaged walkways, and parking lot potholes.
• April: Sewer repairs were reported finished, though the work had been done without a permit.
• June: Inside La Val's, part of the kitchen floor gave way. The owner closed the restaurant. City inspectors found the flooring under the cold storage unit failing and ordered it to stay closed until the property owner made repairs.
• July: The owners' association raised the sewage problem with the city again.
• August 4: After a 48-hour Notice of Violation went unresolved, the city red-tagged all three restaurants.
• August 11: A fourth Notice to Comply added a $3,000 daily fine, $1,000 for each of three municipal code violations, on top of fines from the earlier notices.

After the fines began, the Post reported, work sped up. The contractor fixed leaking plumbing and drain pipes in the crawlspace under China Villa and pumped sewage and contaminated water out of the lagoon. Both sides then planned a final inspection for early September.

The restaurants waited on that work. A La Penca Azul manager told the Post that the landlord handles repairs beneath the building and tenants handle the work above ground. A restaurant can run well and still have no say over when its crawlspace gets fixed.

La Penca Azul came back first

La Penca Azul posted its reopening news on Instagram, which The Oaklandside picked up on September 22. The post thanked customers for sticking with the restaurant "through the good times and the challenging ones," The Alameda Pulse reported. By September 29 the Post was describing it as reopened. In an October 19 opinion piece in the Alameda Post, Gene Kahane, founder of the Foodbank Players and a former Alameda Poet Laureate, wrote that La Penca Azul was "the only open place to eat" in the center.

The Bay Farm restaurant has a sister location on Park Street, which is useful to know if the island location's hours ever change.

Kahane has lived on Bay Farm since 1997. His op-ed lists what the center held when he arrived: Cafe Enrico, La Val's, La Penca Azul back when it was La Piñata, the Alameda Ice Cream Dock, a small bookstore a few steps away, and Video Maniacs. He also names the businesses that have left since, including the gas station, Angel Fish Japanese Restaurant, Coffee and Tea Traders, and the nail salon. Sandy Lance, who moved back to Bay Farm after more than two decades away, told the Post she would like to see "something like an Asian or Chinese bakery, anything that can bring retail back to life."

Why the zoning favors a grocery store

The grocery store rests on something the restaurants don't have. In 2023, Alameda rezoned the Harbor Bay Landing site to allow housing as part of meeting the state's housing targets. The rezoning kept a requirement that any project there include a grocery store.

That requirement was tested in fall 2025. On September 26, 2025, The True Life Companies, a developer considering buying the center, filed a preliminary application for 305 homes. The plan called for 217 for-sale units and 88 rentals, 50 of them affordable, and no retail space. The city's Harbor Bay Landing project page says city staff told the developer the proposal did not meet the zoning, which "requires a mixed-use development at this site, with significant commercial space and a grocery store." True Life withdrew the application on November 21, 2025. According to the same page, the developer said it still wanted to explore a commercial and residential mixed-use project but gave no timeline for coming back. Nearly a year later, that withdrawal is still the most recent entry on the city's page. Anyone who wants an email when the page changes can sign up there.

City staff also met with Safeway officials in October 2025 to say they supported keeping the store at the site, the Post reported. Safeway has announced no changes to the location. The center's current owner is Harbor Bay Landing, LLC, based in Burlingame. The Post couldn't learn its plans for the property.

A grocery store is written into the site's zoning, and the Safeway has drawn public support from city staff. The restaurants depend on the building, and the building depends on its owner.

How the mayoral candidates answered

The center came up at the Alameda Post's mayoral forum ahead of the November election. As the Post reported, Malia Vella and Tony Daysog both suggested pressing the landlord and following the "Nob Hill" model from the early 2000s. In that effort the city worked with a developer on a shared vision for the site that became Bridgeside Shopping Center. "Job number one is making a clear statement that we need to keep Harbor Bay Isle shopping center as a vibrant community shopping center," Daysog said. Tracy Jensen said she doubted the city had the authority or the money to repeat the Nob Hill approach, and she described her ongoing conversations with Safeway management about keeping the store there.

All three answers center on the grocery store and the property owner, the same two pieces the zoning and the repair timeline turn on.

Where else to eat on Bay Farm this month

Off Island Drive, most of the island's restaurants sit along Harbor Bay Parkway and at the golf course, and each keeps its own hours.

Jim's On The Course is the one place on the list open from breakfast through dinner, so it's the closest substitute for the restaurants Harbor Bay Landing used to have. Cafe Jolie Petit and Oscar's Grill cover weekday mornings and lunch along Harbor Bay Parkway. Cafe Jolie's posted hours vary by day, so check its schedule before heading out. The Harbor Bay Club's happy hour runs on weekday evenings. The Harbor Bay ferry terminal is at 215 Adelphian Way.

Back at Harbor Bay Landing, Safeway keeps its 6 a.m. to midnight hours and La Penca Azul's dining room is open again. For updates on the site itself, check the city's Harbor Bay Landing project page.

At Annie Tegner, we keep watching Harbor Bay Landing's planning file and the island's day-to-day changes. If you own on Bay Farm and want a clear read on where your home stands while the shopping center's future gets settled, request your free East Bay home valuation and we'll go through it with you.