ANDERSONVILLE — Next year, Clark Street will be home to a fresh spin on the Dollop coffee shop brand.
Dan Weiss, owner of the local collection of coffee shops, will open a Dollop diner at 5060 N. Clark St., Weiss said this week.
"It's pretty exciting. It'll be a cafe like all the rest of the Dollops, but will also be a breakfast-all-day diner," he said.
Weiss, who now has 10 Dollops across Chicago including its flagship location at 4181 N. Clarendon Ave. in Uptown, said he was excited to open something in Andersonville.
"I call it downtown Rogers Park," he said of the neighborhood. "That's where I go to eat because I live in Rogers Park."
The restaurant, slated to open next door to Jet's Pizza on the ground floor of a new apartment complex along Clark Street, will not off table service. Instead, diners will order at the counter and an employee will bring the food to their table, he said.
The menu was created by Chef Keith Kreuser, a longtime friend of Weiss who's worked as his recording engineer, said Weiss, who also raps under the moniker Verbal Kent.
"I wanted to work with him aside from music," Weiss said.
Customers can expect a fun menu including offerings like chicken and waffles and house-made donuts.
It'll be "a small breakfast-heavy menu, focusing on craveable, seasonal comfort foods with some modern twists," said Kreuser, who has training in all forms of hospitality.
Weiss is also applying for a liquor license and hopes to have cocktails on draft and stock local beers.
The interior of the diner is about 1,600 square feet and allows seating for about 45-50 people, but the owner is most excited about the "massive" patio with tons of outdoor seating during the warm months, he said.
The diner "will shine chrome with maple curves in a mod update of the classic Chicago diner," designer Paul Leisen said.
Dollop hopes to open around March 1.
"We're really going to do it up. Our goal is to really make it a fun place, where if you're driving down Clark you want to stop," Weiss said.
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