When Southport Grocery and Cafe opened at 3552 N. Southport Ave. in 2003, it didn't serve breakfast. Owner Lisa Santos had planned on lunch and dinner. Then the servers' notebook of customer requests kept coming back with the same word. As she told Block Club Chicago, "after one guy ordered two orders of the bread-pudding pancakes and ate them both, I knew we had to switch."
Twenty-three years later, the cafe closes on Dec. 31. Its last breakfast service will include the dish that started breakfast there.
Most of the building's daily life will carry on in some form under Dollop Coffee Co., with the same staff and a few of the same baked goods. Santos's menu is the part with an end date, and knowing which dishes are leaving makes the next six weeks easier to plan around.
Who is still at 3552 N. Southport in February
Dollop Coffee Co. is taking over the space for a new concept called Dollop Finer Diner. The relationship goes back years. Santos partnered with Dollop a little more than four years ago to expand its wholesale pastry operation, according to Block Club. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Dollop had closed its bake shop at 1000 N. Damen Ave. after the pandemic and moved that work into its Montrose location, then outgrew it.
The staff is the biggest piece that carries over. Southport employs nearly 40 people across the cafe and bakery, up from the seven it opened with. "I have people that have worked for me for 18 years," Santos told Block Club. "They all have jobs at the new concept. They all have a soft landing." The Sun-Times added that the employees will be able to opt into healthcare once the transition is official, which they could not do before.
The kitchen's leadership stays too. Dollop's director of food and beverage, Keith Kreuser, is building the new menu with Noemi Rojas, Southport's kitchen manager. He told the Sun-Times that Rojas is "always making family meal, and she made these pupusas with scallions and ham, and I was like, 'This is perfect.'"
A few recipes make the move as well. The biscotti stays, and so does Santos's grandmother's sugar cookie recipe. Santos keeps a small ownership stake in Dollop Finer Diner and will help with consulting and taste-testing.
What doesn't make the move
The bread pudding pancakes won't be on Dollop's menu, the Sun-Times reported. Santos owns the Southport Grocery name and the cafe's recipes, and she has said she won't open another brick-and-mortar restaurant. "All the cafe recipes are mine, and that's what I'm putting out in the universe next," she told the Sun-Times. She floated a Substack or "maybe a book, but not a cookbook."
So the pancakes are on a real clock. The kitchen is also bringing back dishes customers have kept asking for, including apple-stuffed French toast and its own version of a Hostess Ding Dong. In the Sun-Times story, Reddit commenters asked Dollop to keep the brisket hash and the brisket and gravy.
The cafe is open daily from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the kitchen closes 30 minutes before closing time. Anyone planning one more weekend breakfast should arrive by 2:30 p.m. at the latest.
The last orders have deadlines
Until Dec. 31, Southport is running business as usual, including Thanksgiving catering, Christmas cookies, gift baskets and two more Secret Suppers. This is the last holiday season for those orders, so the dates matter.
| What | Details | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Thanksgiving catering | Slagel Farm turkey at $120 or $240, most sides $30 to $75, pies $28 to $38, cranberry-grape sauce $6.95 | Order by Sunday, Nov. 22; pick up Wednesday, Nov. 25, before 3 p.m. |
| Christmas cookies | $13.95 to $26.95 | Ordered through the online shop |
| Gift boxes | Cookies and Coffee box $52; Chicago Favorites boxes $85 to $140 | Local delivery, shipping or store pickup |
| Secret Supper | $120 per person, tax and gratuity included | Friday, Dec. 4, 7 p.m. |
| Last day | Cafe closes after 23 years | Thursday, Dec. 31 |
The Thanksgiving menu covers the full table, with stuffing, potato mash, gravy, green bean casserole, carrots, slaw, apple salad, rolls and pies. Everything is scratch-made and comes ready to heat and serve. A dinner for two is offered alongside the à la carte catering. For larger gift orders or custom baskets, the cafe takes requests by phone or email.
Dec. 4 is the night the avenue lines up
The Secret Supper isn't the only thing on Southport that Friday. The Lakeview Roscoe Village Chamber's Southport Holiday Cocktail Crawl runs the same evening from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. along the corridor, with cocktail samples, carolers and Santa photos at participating businesses. The supper starts at 7 p.m., while the crawl still has 90 minutes to go, so you could fit both into one evening on the same few blocks.
The holiday dates around the cafe's final weeks, in order:
- Thursday, Nov. 19, 6 p.m. The Lakeview East tree lighting at Clark Street Dog, 3040 N. Clark St.
- Friday, Nov. 20. Christkindlmarket Wrigleyville and Winterland open at Gallagher Way, 3635 N. Clark St., and run through Dec. 31. Admission to the market is free. Regular hours are 3 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, with exceptions on the holidays.
- Saturday, Nov. 21, 11 a.m. The Music Box Theatre's Sound of Music Sing-A-Long.
- Sunday, Nov. 22, 6 to 7:30 p.m. The West Lakeview tree lighting at Lincoln and Wellington. It's also the last day to order Thanksgiving catering from Southport.
- Friday, Dec. 4. The cocktail crawl, then the Secret Supper at 7 p.m.
- Saturday, Dec. 5, through Dec. 24. The Music Box's 43rd Annual Christmas Sing-A-Long and Double Feature, with Santa-led caroling plus White Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life. Opening-day screenings are at 11:30 a.m., 2:45 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.
On weekends at Winterland, Santa visits run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. between Nov. 27 and Dec. 20, and Friday visits run from 4 to 9 p.m. Holiday movies start at 7 p.m. on Dec. 3, 10 and 17, and a Hanukkah menorah lighting is set for 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 8.
January is quiet, and Feb. 1 is the date
After Dec. 31, 3552 N. Southport goes dark for a month. January is a renovation month, and the staff will be paid and trained at other Dollop locations while contractors work on the space. Dollop Finer Diner is scheduled to open on Feb. 1, 2027, the Southport Corridor roundup reported.
The menu will look different. Santos described the concept as specialty coffee with "elevated" breakfast and lunch. Kreuser told the Sun-Times to expect possible dishes such as a house longganisa, which is Filipino sausage, along with huevos rancheros, chilaquiles with house-made chips and salsa verde, and breakfast burritos. Rojas's pupusas, the dish that started in family meal, show up in that same conversation.
During the gap, two newer spots nearby serve breakfast. Call Your Mother opened its second Chicago shop at 2956 N. Sheffield Ave. on Oct. 26. It serves malt-boiled bagels that combine New York and Montreal styles, plus breakfast and deli sandwiches, in a corner building decorated with a wooden canoe and camp pennants. On Southport itself, Colectivo Coffee at 3258 N. Southport Ave. serves all-day breakfast.
When Dollop opens, the same cooks will be in the kitchen and the biscotti will be at the counter. The bread pudding pancakes are only on the menu until Dec. 31.
We follow storefront changes on the Southport Corridor because they affect daily life for people who live along it. If you own a home near Southport and want to know where it stands as the avenue changes, Blume Group can put together a free home valuation with the same attention to detail.
