When Belles first moved into The Penny Black, it was meant to be for three weeks.
A short-run kitchen residency. A chance to test the room. A chance to see whether Brunswick wanted what we had to cook. To be honest, we weren’t completely sure.
A New Version of Belles,
Hidden Inside an Old Pub
Belles started in Fitzroy back in 2014, and there was always the question of whether Brunswick was too close. Whether the north side already had enough Belles in its bones. Whether people would make the trip if they wanted it badly enough.
Then something funny happened.
The people who grew up coming to Belles in Fitzroy had grown up too. They’d moved house. Shifted suburbs. Found their new local rhythms. A lot of them had landed in Brunswick.
And suddenly this didn’t feel like opening somewhere new.
It felt like following people home.
The Penny Black made sense in a way we didn’t fully expect. Not because it was polished or perfect or pretending to be something it isn’t. Quite the opposite. It worked because it already had a life of its own. It’s a gorgeous old pub with stories in the walls. A place people remember. A place people talk about with that little flicker in their eye, usually before telling you about some night they had there years ago. The kind of pub where you can sit in the beer garden for longer than planned and convince yourself you’re solving the world’s problems.
No pokies. No nonsense. Just a proper pub built around people, music, beer, food and the strange little magic that happens when the right room starts humming again. And that became the point. Belles didn’t move into Penny Black to turn it into something else. Penny Black didn’t need a costume change. What started to happen was much better than that.
The pub stayed the pub. Belles stayed Belles.
And somewhere in the middle, a new version of both started to appear. A version of Belles hidden inside a gorgeous old pub. One with a bigger room, a longer night and a little more air around it. A place where the party doesn’t have to end just because dinner service is done. A place where hot chicken, cold beer and a good soundtrack can stretch into something much more generous.
By day, Belles Hot Radio moves through the venue. Soul-driven, warm, loose in the shoulders. The kind of soundtrack that lets lunch turn into an afternoon without asking too many questions. By night, especially Friday and Saturday, the room changes shape.
Sometimes it’s old-school boogie.
Sometimes it’s modern-day boogie.
Sometimes it depends entirely on who’s in the building and what’s in the air.
No requests. No regrets.
The best part is that none of this has felt forced. The teams clicked. The energy clicked. The locals came through. People who remembered Penny Black from old nights came back for new ones. People who knew Belles from Fitzroy found us closer to home. Bigger groups started filling the room. The beer garden started doing what beer gardens are supposed to do. People attract people. And when a room starts to feel alive again, you don’t over-explain it. You feed it.
So that’s what we’re doing.
From Sunday to Thursday, book a table and we’ll shout you a beer or a vino on arrival.
Friday and Saturday, book a table and we’ll sort you happy hour prices on beer and wine for the whole night of boogie.
Come for dinner. Stay for the room.
Help us see what this thing can become.
Belles Hot Chicken x The Penny Black
Brunswick, maybe you had other ideas all along.
