Southport Grocery and Cafe will close December 31 in Lakeview, with Dollop Finer Diner taking over

After 23 years on Southport Avenue, Southport Grocery and Cafe will close on December 31, 2026, the Chicago Sun-Times reported in a story published October 29 on WBEZ. Dollop Coffee Co. bought owner Lisa Santos out of the business at 3552 N Southport Ave in Lakeview and hopes to reopen the storefront as Dollop Finer Diner on February 1, 2027, according to the same report.

Santos announced the closing in an Instagram video posted Saturday, October 17, CBS News Chicago reported the next day. Until the last day, the cafe is open every day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the kitchen closes 30 minutes before the doors do, according to the cafe’s website. The phone number is (773) 665-0100.

The main points of the Sun-Times report are these:

• Southport Grocery and Cafe closes for good on December 31, 2026.
• Dollop Coffee Co. bought Santos out, and Santos keeps a small ownership stake in Dollop Finer Diner.
• Contractors are scheduled to work on the Southport Avenue space through January 2027.
• Dollop is aiming to open Dollop Finer Diner in the same storefront on February 1, 2027.
• The cafe’s staff of nearly 40 will be paid and trained at other Dollop locations through January.

Who owns what

Santos, 63, opened Southport Grocery in 2003 and has run the cafe and grocery since, according to the Sun-Times. Dollop Coffee Co. is a separate company whose founder and CEO is Dan Weiss, the paper reported. Weiss started Dollop with a single cafe in Uptown in 2005, according to Dollop’s website and a 2021 What Now Chicago report that named him as the owner.

The two businesses were already working together before the sale. Southport’s menu lists the bottomless house coffee and the cold brew as Dollop products, according to the cafe’s website, and CBS News Chicago reported that Dollop and Southport have had a partnership for three years.

Santos described the decision to close as having two parts, the Sun-Times reported, and one of them was that, as a small business owner, she had always kept an eventual exit in mind. The talks with Dollop started nearly four years ago, when both businesses were looking for ways to stay afloat after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the paper. Keith Kreuser, Dollop’s director of food and beverage, told the Sun-Times that Dollop had closed the company’s bake shop at 1000 N Damen Ave after the pandemic and moved that work into the Montrose location, which quickly ran out of room. Weiss suggested that Santos could use a partner for her wholesale business, the paper reported.

What happens to the staff and the recipes

Southport now employs nearly 40 people across the cafe and bakery, up from the seven employees Santos started with, according to the Sun-Times, which reported that her husband, Joel Santos, helped out in the early days. All of them have jobs, the paper reported, and they will be paid and trained at other Dollop locations through January. Kreuser told the Sun-Times that the workers will have the option to sign up for health insurance, which they did not have before.

Some of Santos’ cooking will carry over. Her grandmother’s sugar cookie recipe and the cafe’s biscotti will stay on the menu, according to the Sun-Times. Santos told the paper that the cafe’s recipes are hers and that she plans to share them next, possibly through a Substack or a book that would not be a cookbook. “I am not retiring,” she said.

Before the last day, the cafe is bringing back past menu items, including apple stuffed French toast, a Grown-up Pop Tart and Ding Dong cake, with chicken and grits due to return as well, CBS News Chicago reported.

What Dollop Finer Diner will serve

The Sun-Times described the new restaurant as an outpost of Dollop Coffee Co. built around specialty coffee and upscale breakfast and lunch dishes. Dishes under consideration include house-made longganisa, huevos rancheros, chilaquiles with house-made chips and salsa verde, breakfast burritos and a pupusa with scallions and ham inspired by Southport kitchen manager Noemi Rojas, according to the paper.

In an October 22 report, What Now Chicago wrote that the Lakeview diner is expected to carry many items from Dollop’s Andersonville menu, such as sandwiches, pancakes, waffles, soups and salads. New dishes had not been announced at the time of that report.

The storefront is in the 44th Ward, which is represented by Ald. Bennett Lawson, according to the city’s ward page.

As of October 29, the city’s business license data listed the licenses at 3552 N Southport Ave under Southport G & C, LLC, doing business as Southport Grocery & Cafe, and showed no license at that address under a Dollop name. The cafe’s first retail food license there was issued August 13, 2003, according to the same records.

The Andersonville original

Dollop’s first diner is Dollop Diner at 5060 N Clark St in Andersonville, which Dollop’s website lists with daily hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. DNAinfo reported on June 30, 2017, that the diner would open that Sunday as Weiss’ first restaurant beyond coffee shops, with a menu by Kreuser that included pancakes, chicken and waffles, fried chicken sandwiches, salads, a burger and doughnuts made fresh daily.

The Clark Street diner sits between Winnemac and Carmen avenues, Hoodline reported in July 2017. The diner’s website describes the food as locally sourced, classic American fare with locally roasted coffee and batched cocktails, and says patio seating is available. Dollop’s website and the city’s license records list that restaurant as Dollop Diner, while the Sun-Times and CBS News Chicago use the name Dollop Finer Diner for the Southport location. Dollop’s website lists 14 locations in all, including a shared cafe in Evanston.

Twenty-three years on Southport Avenue

Santos opened the business in a former Cooney Funeral Home space, CBS News Chicago reported. Before she started cooking for a living, she spent more than a decade in financial services as a certified public accountant and then went to culinary school, according to the cafe’s website.

The cafe has served breakfast and lunch all day. The menu on the cafe’s website lists bread pudding pancakes with cinnamon-sugar butter and vanilla anglaise, cupcake pancakes made from gluten-free cupcake batter, grilled coffee cake layered with cream cheese and a Southport Cuban with house-smoked brisket, ham and Gruyère on house-made Dutch crunch bread. The grocery shelves hold the kitchen’s own preserves, pickles and mustards alongside sauces, spices and other goods from local producers, and the cafe has held a monthly Secret Supper, according to the website.

The preserves have won national awards. DNAinfo reported in January 2014 that the shop’s smoked onion marmalade won a Good Food Award in the pickles category, a year after the shop’s first Good Food Award, for Dilly Beans. A 2013 post on the cafe’s blog shared the cafe’s write-up in that year’s Michelin Guide.

For regulars planning a last visit, these details come from the cafe’s website and Time Out Chicago’s listing:

• The cafe has both indoor and outdoor seating, according to the website.
• Takeout and delivery orders can be placed through links on the cafe’s website.
• Gift baskets can be delivered, shipped or picked up, according to the website.
• The CTA Brown Line’s Southport station is the nearest train stop, according to Time Out.
• CTA bus routes 9, 152 and 154 also serve the area, according to Time Out.

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