Colusa Circle: A Changing Storefront Mix and a Steady Sunday Market

In the 1970s, if you wanted the best wine list in the East Bay, you drove to a restaurant whose dining room had been built out of a giant hollowed redwood tank, tucked into a traffic circle in Kensington. Narsai's was the kind of place that catered outdoor shows for Bill Graham and the Rolling Stones, and the New York Times once called its wine list one of the ten finest in the world. It closed in 1986.

Colusa Circle's storefronts have changed over time, while the market and other recurring events have continued. Together, they help shape how this corner of the East Bay functions.

A Circle at a Community Crossroads

Colusa Circle sits at the literal meeting point of four communities. Berkeley, Kensington, Albany, and El Cerrito all touch this one intersection of Colusa Avenue, Berkeley Park Boulevard, and Oak View Avenue, anchored by a landscaped traffic island with a mature oak at its center. The island itself wasn't always permanent. It went in as a temporary circle in 1986, became permanent in 1988, and was landscaped the following year by the Kensington Improvement Club under the pro bono direction of landscape architect Ted Osmundson.

That timing matters. The circle got its physical shape the same year Narsai's shut down, which meant the neighborhood was reshaping its literal center of gravity at the exact moment its most famous business disappeared.

How Colusa Circle's Storefronts Have Changed

Over the next two decades, storefronts continued to change. According to the Colusa Circle Merchants Association's own account of the block's history, longtime shopkeepers had a nickname for the stretch by the time one business owner arrived in 2008: "the circle was called the 'Colusa Triangle,' a place where, like the Bermuda Triangle, businesses appeared and then disappeared." Some tenants held on. Most didn't.

In 2007, Narsai David (the restaurant's namesake) and landowner Ed Hammonds got approval from the Kensington Municipal Advisory Committee and the county for revised development plans to add office and retail space to the circle.

The Sunday That Did

In 2008, the Kensington Farmers' Market moved down from upper Kensington to Oak View Avenue, right at Colusa Circle. It wasn't a new business. It was a weekly event with no lease to sign and no storefront to maintain, and it is the one thing on this corner that has not stopped since it arrived.

The market runs every Sunday, rain or shine, from 10am to 2pm on Oak View Avenue between Colusa Circle and Santa Fe Avenue. It's a California Certified Farmers' Market, meaning every vendor is state-certified to have grown or made what they're selling, and it's organized as a non-profit that treats the health of the community as inseparable from the health of the food supply. It features live music alongside the produce stands, which is a small detail that turns a grocery errand into something closer to a weekly gathering.

The market's arrival didn't just add foot traffic. It gave the circle a fixed point that didn't depend on any single tenant's survival. A restaurant can close. A Sunday can't.

What's Actually There Now

The current storefronts around the circle are a mix of longtime holdouts and newer arrivals, and most of them sit within a block of each other on Colusa Avenue:

• Kensington Circus Pub, an English-style gastropub at 389 Colusa Avenue known locally for its fish and chips and its play area for kids
• Colusa Market, a neighborhood grocery at 406 Colusa Avenue with a butcher counter that regulars specifically call out
• Circle Salon, a boutique hair salon at 404 Colusa Avenue
• Freshly Cut Florist, at 378 Colusa Avenue
• Fuse Fitness Studio, at 377 Colusa Avenue
• Benchmark Pizzeria, on Oak View Avenue
• Grizzly Peak Press and Kensington Veterinary Hospital, rounding out the block's mix of services

Alongside its storefronts, the market gives people a recurring reason to visit the circle.

The Calendar That Repeats

The Colusa Circle Merchants Association has built its own version of that same principle into an annual calendar. The Colusa Circle 5K just ran its eighth edition on March 14, 2026, a fun run and walk that starts and ends at the circle itself. It's not a fixed fundraiser for one cause. Past editions have benefited the Watershed Project, an organization working on a multi-year restoration initiative in the Wildcat Creek watershed that runs through Kensington, and Growing Together, which supports school garden programs across West Contra Costa. This year's race raised money for Tiny Village Spirit, a Richmond nonprofit building emergency housing for unsheltered youth ages 18 to 24. A different beneficiary each spring, same circle, same morning.

Fall brings the Halloween Harvest Celebration, with a costume parade, a scavenger hunt that ends in free ice cream, a hay bale play structure, a pumpkin-weight guessing contest, and an animal show that's become the event's most talked-about fixture. Winter brings the Holiday Fair, with lights, music, and holiday shopping folded into one evening. Neither event depends on which storefronts happen to be open that particular year.

What This Actually Tells You

If you live near Colusa Circle, the market and recurring events are part of its neighborhood calendar. The Sunday market is now in its second decade, the spring race is in its eighth year, and the fall celebration and winter fair return as annual events.

Narsai's is gone. The redwood tank dining room is gone. The circle is still there, and so is Sunday.

If you're weighing a move within the Kensington, Berkeley, Albany, or El Cerrito corner and want a read on a neighborhood that goes beyond the market listing, the Estela Sallat & Michael Perry Team works this exact stretch of the East Bay and can walk you through what a given block actually feels like day to day, not just what it costs. You can also browse our Kensington neighborhood guide or schedule a consultation when you're ready to talk specifics.