Cornish Bakery Unveils ‘RISE’ Bakery and Dining Concept
Cornish Bakery is extending its format with RISE, a licensed concept designed for larger sites, longer trading hours and broader community use. The first three locations are planned for Wales, Portsmouth and Falmouth.
Cornish Bakery is preparing to extend its estate with a new licensed format, RISE by Cornish Bakery, which will debut in three of the company’s seven upcoming openings. Positioned as a larger-format concept, RISE is intended to broaden the business’s offer across product, design, service, community use and trading hours.
The founder-led company said the format will be reserved for selected larger properties in key UK locations. According to Cornish Bakery, the concept is designed to move beyond the conventional bakery model by combining all-day use with more locally embedded activity, including events, talks, exhibitions and classes. The expanded food and drink offer will sit alongside coffee from Cornwall-based B-Corp Origin Coffee, while the Portsmouth site will form part of the ongoing evolution of Gunwharf Quays.
In 2021, founder Steve Grocutt said that “bakery is the new coffee shop”. The launch of RISE marks what the business describes as its next stage of development, building on that earlier position with a format intended to blur the boundaries between bakery, café and casual dining.
“RISE represents a significant opportunity for us to reshape hospitality, driving a new direction and our shared mission to provide a ‘bakery for the community’, everywhere we go. Within our select RISE locations, we’ll be extending opportunities for our uniquely-designed bakeries to trade for additional hours whilst more deeply integrating into the social fabric of the surrounding communities.”
Steve Grocutt, Founder, Cornish Bakery
Grocutt said the larger sites would be designed individually rather than applied through a standardised template, with flexibility in layout and use throughout the day and evening.
“Our ‘RISE by Cornish Bakery’ concept purposefully thins the boundaries between traditional bakeries and casual dining spaces. We’re taking the opposite of the lazy ‘cookie cutter’ approach, purposefully designing new flexible environments that showcase bigger spaces, and inviting our guests to enjoy a morning pastry and speciality coffee, return for small plates and a glass of wine or local beer, meet friends and family, or settle in for a relaxed date – at any time of day or evening. RISE is a format designed for time well spent, and given the larger spaces available in these bakeries, they’ll be a place in the local community to host talks, exhibitions, classes or events.”
Steve Grocutt, Founder, Cornish Bakery
First Three RISE Locations Confirmed
The first confirmed RISE by Cornish Bakery site is due to open in Betws-y-Coed, Conwy, in April 2026, marking the company’s first location in Wales. The 2,500 sq ft property will seat up to 192 customers across indoor and outdoor areas. Located at the entrance to Eryri National Park, it will be designed around the theme of the “bakery of anticipation”, with interiors intended to reflect the setting and include work by local designers, including hand-made Welsh tapestries.
A second RISE site is scheduled to open in early May 2026 at Portsmouth’s historic waterfront Gunwharf Quays Designer Outlet Centre. Cornish Bakery has traded at Gunwharf Quays since 2001 and, following redevelopment at the outlet, is relocating to a significantly larger two-storey unit. At 3,500 sq ft, it will become the company’s largest site to date and will include an orangery, outdoor terrace, first-floor balcony and space for baking and barista classes.
The third confirmed RISE bakery will open in Falmouth, where Cornish Bakery is taking a second site on the town’s main shopping street. The 92-seat space will be arranged across three floors in an historic building overlooking the sea, with dedicated areas intended for interactive art exhibitions and presentations.
Extended Food and Drink Offer
Across the RISE locations, Cornish Bakery plans to expand its traditional bakery and coffee offer with a new small-plates menu spanning breakfast, brunch, lunch and early evening dining. Existing core lines will remain, including Cornish pasties, sausage rolls, viennoiserie, cakes and coffee.
New dishes will include Chorizo and Shakshuka baked eggs with tomatoes, peppers, onion, spices and free-range eggs from St. Ewe Eggs; Cornish Huevos Rancheros with black beans, tomatoes, guacamole and free-range St. Ewe Eggs; a Crab Gratin with dauphinoise potato, Cornish cheddar, lemon and parsley; and a Cornish Ploughman’s sharing plate for two with ham hock and piccalilli terrine, farmhouse sausage roll, Cornish cheddar, chutney, gherkins and grapes. Drinks will include Cornish beers from Harbour Brewery and wines from Camel Valley Vineyard.
“Whilst RISE by Cornish Bakery is pioneering for the sector, it is simply a natural progression for us. Our vision is to redefine what a bakery is does and can be, and our select new larger RISE locations enhance our belief that bakeries should be part of the community with us providing new spaces where local communities can host special events and happenings.”
Steve Grocutt, Founder, Cornish Bakery
“We’re creating a format that removes the traditional boundaries between bakery, caf? and casual dining, allowing us to move seamlessly from morning viennoiserie and exceptional roasted coffee through to small plates and a glass of Cornish wine or beer. At the heart of it remains our exceptional baking, but the setting is reimagined for a new generation who see hospitality as something more fluid and experiential.”
Steve Grocutt, Founder, Cornish Bakery
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