Named after the keys.
Built around the music.
How Paignton ended up with a piano bar.
A piano bar was always
missing from this part
of Torbay.
Black and ivory: the two colours of key that make a piano. Press one, you get a note. Press the right combination, you get music. That's the idea this place runs on.
Black Ivory is Paignton's first piano bar, and a working one, not a cocktail bar with a piano in the corner. The piano comes first and the rest of the room is built around it.
Music played live and a gin of our own. There are plenty of places to drink between Paignton and Torquay, but very few where the room does any of the work.
Live music every week in a small room, and a bar that gives you a reason to stay out past dinner.
Paignton has been quietly
changing for a few years.
More independent places, and a crowd that wants more than the obvious options. Black Ivory is for them, and for anyone visiting Torbay who wants an evening that doesn't feel like a holiday cliché.
Paignton has been changing. Black Ivory fits what it's changing into.
We open for the music. On a live night someone is at the piano, and everything else follows from that: what we serve, how the room feels, why people stay.
We're not trying to be the biggest bar in Torbay. The room is the size it needs to be for live music to work in it. When someone sits at the piano, you can hear them from anywhere in the room. That's the point.
Our own Drunken Horse gin sits at the heart of the bar. Our cocktails are short on theatrics and long on actually tasting good. Our wines are chosen because we drink them, not because someone in marketing says we should.
The week at Black Ivory
Wednesdays are live piano from 7.30pm, with guest singers. Thursdays are jazz with C'est Si Bon from 8pm. Sunday afternoons bring open mic or live music from 3pm, and pianists are welcome to play.
Community groups meet here every month, and special nights sit on top: guest performers, themed evenings and seasonal jazz.
- Wednesdays · Live Piano Night from 7.30pm
- Thursdays · Jazz Night from 8pm
- Sundays · Open Mic or Live Music from 3pm
- Special nights · On the What's On calendar
Two minutes from
the seafront.
Black Ivory is two minutes from Paignton seafront and a fifteen-minute drive from Torquay harbourside. If you're staying anywhere in Torbay, you're within reach. We're a short walk from Paignton railway station for anyone arriving by train from Exeter, Plymouth or further afield.
Free parking on nearby streets after 6pm. Bookings are recommended on event nights.
Ready to visit?
The room is small. Tables go quickly on event nights. Worth booking ahead.
