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The restored Victorian sail loft interior, with exposed oak trusses, granite walls and a mezzanine filled with daylight

Our Story

A Victorian sail loft. Wine and small plates. An open home in Penryn.

The Neighbourhood is a wine bar run out of a family house near the head of the Penryn River. The best kind of bar, they say, feels like being invited into someone’s home.

That’s the idea. Marisa and Ernest bought this building four years ago, restored it slowly, opened a deli first, then a wine bar, really a way to open one more bottle and stay around for the evening.

Penryn harbour at sunset, old quayside buildings and moored boats mirrored in the still water beneath a peach sky

A vision, a building, a town.

Marisa saw it first

We were living somewhere quiet four years ago when she found this building, a Victorian sail loft, lived in by three people, with a developer already lined up to turn it into apartments. To Ernest it didn’t look like much. To Marisa it looked like everything. As Ernest still puts it: “She had the vision, she always does.”

Built in 1850 to hold sails

A Victorian loft of granite and timber, restored slowly with an architect who’d never worked on something this old. Mezzanine levels, a bridge from the main bedroom, exposed stone, a fireplace opened up to the room, new windows letting in light buildings this old rarely have.

Slowly part of the town

“There’s a feeling of wanting everyone to be included here,” Ernest says. The bar opened quietly, walk-ins, locals, friends of friends, then regulars. Somewhere along the way, a feeling of belonging.

The granite frontage of The Neighbourhood on a Penryn back lane, with its red sign by the door and a classic car on the cobbles in the sun

An extension of our living room.

Twenty seats, sometimes thirty. Thoughtful bottles, generous pours, small plates that arrive when they’re ready. Soundproofed doors, warm light, the kind of room you stay in past the time you meant to leave.

“I don’t know anything about wine,” Ernest still says. Four years in, the regulars would disagree.

The bar opens for evenings Wednesday through Saturday. By morning, the same room becomes a calm place to work, a side chapter we call Hustle, Calmly.

See Hustle, Calmly

Come and see for yourself.

The bar is on Bohill, near the head of the Penryn River. Walk in when you can.