Neighbors count down last breakfasts before ‘iconic’ Southport Grocery closes for Dollop Finer Diner

Judy Sutton Taylor has been bringing her twin daughters to Southport Grocery and Cafe since they were born in 2003, the same year the iconic Lake View breakfast spot opened.

After hearing that Southport will close on Dec. 31, she and her friend Patti Morrow decided to grab the most important meal of the day on the patio. “I've been here countless times and just wanted to get in as many opportunities as we can to come before it closes,” Sutton Taylor said.

The closure of the beloved Lake View staple will make way for Dollop Finer Diner, an outpost of Chicago-based Dollop Coffee Co., which has multiple neighborhood cafes across the city. The new concept will feature specialty coffee and “elevated” breakfast and lunch items, said Southport owner and chef Lisa Santos. As with the 2026 closures of other upscale diners with decades of history, like Wishbone in the West Loop, neighbors and regulars like Sutton Taylor have lamented the loss of a family-friendly community gathering place that has been a generational staple.

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Sutton Taylor and Morrow aren’t opposed to checking out the Dollop Finer Diner, but they both expressed a bit of despair at Southport’s departure from the block.

“I'm sad to lose this,” Sutton Taylor said. “It's definitely disappointing for the neighborhood. This is an iconic spot in the neighborhood. It's definitely going to be missed.”

On Reddit, some users called the news “devastating” and the change a “downgrade.” Others begged Dollop to keep the restaurant’s popular dishes, the brisket hash and the brisket and gravy.

Santos, 63, isn’t completely leaving. Though Dollop has bought her out of her business, she will own a small portion of the Dollop Finer Diner and some of her original recipes, including her grandmother’s sugar cookie recipe, will remain part of the menu.

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Southport Grocery’s famous banana pudding pancakes won’t be on the menu at Dollop Finer Diner, but a few key items such as the biscotti will stay.

Though Santos is taking a step back, she said: “I am not retiring. I need to be doing something, so I'm excited about what's next on that front.” She announced the closure in an Instagram video.

“But all the cafe recipes are mine, and that's what I'm putting out in the universe next,” Santos said. “Is it going to be a Substack presence? Maybe a book, but not a cookbook?”

Santos said her decision to close is “twofold.” First, she’d always kept the inevitability of exiting in the back of her head, especially as a small business owner.

Nearly four years ago, Santos met with two leaders of Dollop Coffee Co.: Keith Kreuser, director of food and beverage, and Dan Weiss, the founder and CEO. Both teams were looking for ways to stay afloat, especially after COVID-19 changed the restaurant landscape in Chicago.

“Post-pandemic, we had closed our bake shop down at 1000 N. Damen Ave. and shoehorned … those operations into our Montrose location,” Kreuser said. But they quickly outgrew the Montrose Avenue bakery, and Weiss “surmised” that Santos could use “a partner to bolster her wholesale business.”

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Santos said she is giving all of her employees a “soft-landing” with the Dollop partnership. “The key to that is they all have jobs. I have employees that have worked for me for 18 years … and that has always weighed so heavily on me about how that exit would look and how it's more than me,” Santos said.

When Southport Grocery and Cafe first opened, Santos started with just seven employees. She even got her husband, Joel Santos, to help around the restaurant during its early days. Now, Southport employs nearly 40 people across the cafe and bakery.

Kreuser said Southport employees “will get the option to opt into healthcare” — something they didn’t have before — once the transition is official. The employees will also be paid and trained at other Dollop locations through January, while contractors work on updating the Lake View space.

Kreuser said the hope is for Dollop Finer Diner to open on Feb. 1 of next year.

He is working with Southport Grocery and Cafe’s kitchen manager, Noemi Rojas, to create dishes for the Dollop Finer Diner.

“I like to get inspiration from the people that I'm working with, and there's been a lot with Noemi,” he said. “[She] is always making family meal, and she made these pupusas with scallions and ham, and I was like, ‘This is perfect.’”

He said that diners should expect possible items such as a house longganisa (Filipino sausage), huevos rancheros, chilaquiles with house-made chips and salsa verde and breakfast burritos.

“I'm just deriving all this inspiration from all the people that I work with and how we eat at work,” Kreuser said.

Kameron Clepper/For the Sun-Times