Southport Grocery and Café in Chicago’s Lakeview community will be closing at the end of the year, owner and chef Lisa Santos announced this weekend.
Dollop Coffee will be opening a Dollop Finer Diner restaurant in the space, at 3352 N. Southport Ave.
“This is a little hard for me talk about, because this place and the people here as so much part of my life and very important to me,” owner Lisa Santos said in an Instagram video posted Saturday. “We want to celebrate all the way to end.”
In the video, Santos said she is often asked about past menu items, and some such items will indeed be returning before Southport Grocery and Café closes. The apple stuffed French toast and Grown-up Pop Tart are already on back on the menu, and the Ding Dong cake is back at checkout, Santos said in the video.
Chicken and grits will also be returning to the menu soon, Santos said.
There will also be two more secret suppers at Southport Grocery — one in November and one in December, Santos said.
Meanwhile, holiday traditions will go on as usual, including Thanksgiving catering and Christmas cookie baking, and the retail section of the store and restaurant is already full of preserves and artisanal groceries, Santos said.
Southport Grocery and Café opened in 2003 in a former Cooney Funeral Home space.
An early Chicago Tribune article highlighted “comfort food for a 21st century palate” at Southport Grocery and Café, at the time including short ribs braised in ginger-soy sauce and a crème brûlée of the day. The article said Santos took classes at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago and went on to open the restaurant and store after a long stint in the insurance business.
Southport Grocery and Café currently serves breakfast and lunch all day, and holds ticketed secret suppers. The grocery stocks gift baskets, award-winning preserves, pasta sauces, hot sauces, soup mixes, bitters, beans, and other items.
Santos said in the video released this weekend that Dollop Coffee has had a partnership with Southport Grocery and Café that began three years ago. There is already a Dollop Diner at 5060 N. Clark St. in the Andersonville neighborhood, and there are 12 other Dollop Coffee shops in Chicago — primarily in the downtown area and on the North Side — as well as a joint Dollop and Hoosier Mama Pie Co. in Evanston.
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