Southport Grocery & Cafe Starts Supper

You love Southport Grocery & Cafe for its brunch, and for its cupcakes, and for the best of both worlds, cupcake pancakes. Now there's a lot more to love about this darling Southport Ave. staple, with the recent debut of supper service. The food philosophy is the same as at brunch, concentrating on contemporary interpretations of American comfort foods, albeit at a later hour and with more booze. As owner Lisa Santos explains, they wanted to bring a bit of conviviality to the supper experience, encouraging sharing and sampling bites of different things. As always, high-quality in-house products are the crux of the program, including house-smoked meats, in-house preserves, scratch-made baked goods, and local ingredients. The menu changes seasonally, though items are tweaked weekly based on market availability. Remember that there's a new farmers' market just down the street.

Supper is served Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 5:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. The cafe also instated a transitional afternoon menu from 3:30 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. offering part of the supper menu, to bridge the gap between meal periods and satiate those who are surely twiddling their thumbs waiting for supper. The adage for the menu is "modern, simple, and fun," arranged in order from lighter fare to heartier, and designed to be shared. Start with some bread & butter cauliflower, hot & spicy asparagus, a selection of Publican Quality Meats charcuterie, some scallop crudo, or a bowl of duck pho. Things get decadent with dishes such as bacon- and mushroom-crusted halibut, kimchi-spiced soft-shell crab, a ballotine with duck thigh and pork sausage, and a pork shoulder steak with rhubarb barbecue and quinoa porridge. For dessert, rest assured that Southport's famous cupcakes are readily available, along with monkey bread, strawberry short cake, and the brunchtime favorite bread pudding pancakes with cinnamon-sugar butter and vanilla anglaise. To drink, there's a selection of wines by the glass and bottle, some craft beers, and cocktails. Just like during the day, the cafe does not accept reservations for supper.

Just when you think you've maxed out your love quota for Southport Grocery & Cafe, they prove that they've still got tricks up their chef coats. Touche.

(Ballotine. Photo: Southport Grocery & Cafe)

(Pork shoulder. Photo: Southport Grocery & Cafe)