From Le Caveau to Supérette: How Chloé Grigri Is Changing Philly’s Wine Culture

Chloé Grigri of Supérette / Photograph by Dearest Media

Behind the Line is Foobooz’s interview series with the people who make up Philly’s dynamic bar and restaurant scene. For the complete archives, go here.

Close to two years after Heather Thomason’s beloved butchery Primal Supply Meats shut its doors, the corner of Cross Street and East Passyunk Avenue is once again humming with activity. Appropriately, another woman-owned business has moved in — and, thankfully, it’s not a vape shop. Chloé Grigri’s Supérette is the new kid on the block, and, within just days of opening, the wine bar, market, and bottle shop — styled after a French épicerie — has already made an impression.

Converting a butcher’s shop into a wine bar and market takes significant work, and yet when Supérette opened at 1538 East Passyunk Avenue on March 7th, it was days ahead of schedule (its slated debut was March 11th) — a rare feat in the hospitality industry. But Grigri, a stalwart of Philly’s wine community, is an old hand at opening businesses as co-founder of the group Bad Baguette Hospitality, which she runs with her husband Vincent Stipo. For Supérette, she teamed up with Stipo and their business partner Owen Kamihara of El Camino Real and Grigri’s father, Bernard Grigri, to add to an arsenal of wine-focused restaurants and bars around Philly: The Good King Tavern and Le Caveau in Bella Vista, and Superfolie in Rittenhouse.

Although Supérette is similar to those other concepts in its laid-back Frenchiness, it also has its own identity, with a metropolitan, slightly retro vibe. Under its buttermilk, scalloped awning, you’ll find a light, airy space with bottles of wine lining subway tile-covered walls and a whimsical yellow-and-green color scheme.

When you walk in, the layout is partially similar to that of Primal Supply. But where there were once cases displaying cuts of marbled meat, there are all the accoutrements for your dream pantry or charcuterie board: cheese, coils of sausage, Castelvetrano olives, cassis jam, French chips, and candies — and, of course, a robust wine collection, the real star of the show. There’s also a long bar, tables with booths, and window seating for those who want to stay a while.

Wine is available by the glass and bottle — plus beer, cocktails, and a few solid zero-proof options; and a food menu with a charcuterie platter, sandwiches, dishes like steak tartare and an escargot tartlet, and soft serve for dessert. You can order takeout at the counter, too.

Supérette’s bar seating / Photograph by Chloé Pantazi-Wolber

Open Tuesday to Sunday for lunch, dinner, and all-day sipping, snacking, and shopping, Supérette is what you want it to be when you visit, whether that’s a quick stop for a nice bottle of Chenin blanc or a place to catch up with a friend over a glass or two.

Here, Grigri shares more about what to expect from Supérette, the challenges involved with turning a butcher’s shop into a bar, and the trail she’s blazing on Philly’s wine scene.

When you walk into Supérette, I want it to feel like … a little corner store somewhere in France.

It was super important … for us to create an environment that welcomes whatever kind of situation you want it to be — be it sitting at a table, sitting at a bar, leaning against the counter, or looking out the window. When you walk in, we have the market-focused space and the bottle shop. There’s a big case that features a bunch of locally made charcuterie and cheeses and little grab-and-go items like single-portion wines and beers, Orangina, and Perrier. On the opposite side, there’s a bar and dining area.

The aesthetic is … like an Americana luncheonette or diner meets a very kind of Frenchy market wine bar, or cave à manger, if you will.

When it came to selecting inventory for the market, the goal was … to find all of the little snacks and products that we — me and my brother, Lucas Grigri, who is running the show at Supérette as general manager  — were obsessed with growing up, and that my dad was obsessed with growing up.

Some of our favorite treats are … the mustard brand, Amora; our Chipsters lining the walls, a really fun little potato chippy snack; and a lot of little chocolates and candies that we adore, among them being Carambar or Malaba, which is a bubble gum with little tattoos on the inside of the wrapper. We also have some really high-quality harissa. We have roots in North Africa as well, and obviously everywhere in the south of France they cook a lot with harissa. The inventory will grow, too — we’re just getting started.

Compared to my other businesses, Supérette feels … a little louder, like it’s making a little bit more of a splash. This has been the biggest lift out of all of the places in terms of build-out. It was a dramatic change to the space aesthetically.

Supérette’s counter with selection of the team’s favorite French snacks. / Photograph by Chloé Pantazi-Wolber

The biggest challenge was … that the majority of the space was utilized for back-of-house purposes when it was a butcher’s shop. There was a huge walk-in where they would be able to store whole animals and a whole cleaning facility, so we had to flip what people saw from the front of house and connect it to what was the back of house. We opened up some walls to make it really feel like a fully inclusive space.

We still have … the old-school subway tile from Primal Supply on the majority of the walls. Actually, Heather, who owned Primal Supply, was with us for friends and family on the first night of our soft opening, and she was like, “Did you realize that the stickers on the takeout window still say Primal Supply?” I was like, “No, and I don’t know if that’s ever coming down.”

Once we’re really up and running … we’re going to launch a wine club. I think that the space definitely lends itself to being able to host a lot of programming.

The wine scene in Philly … is starting to change. We’ve seen some winemakers, like Pray Tell, which was based in Oregon but is originally from the Philadelphia area, move their operation back to Philly. We have this kind of renaissance of urban wineries that is really exciting, with more wine-focused operations opening.

When The Good King Tavern opened in 2013, I remember we wanted it to be about cocktails and wine, and people were like, “What? No, Philly is a beer town.” I feel as though that has totally changed now, and there is a growing wine community. That’s an exciting thing to see. We keep opening these wine concepts, and they are busy. People want to be there, so it has to mean that people care.

I’d describe our impact as … the driving force behind the stardom of wine right now in Philly. We’re letting it shine on its own.

Le Caveau was the first bar in Philly that focused on wine and didn’t have much of a food program going on. Like, we sling French hot dogs, we have some cheese, and we have some charcuterie, but it’s really reminiscent of the kind of wine bars that you stumble into in France. At the time Le Caveau opened, in 2019, there really hadn’t been anything like that in Philly. There had been restaurants that had good wine programs, but there hadn’t really been bars that were treating wine as the star of the show.

Since then, obviously, we had a global pandemic that certainly created some obstacles, in addition to the challenges that we deal with in Pennsylvania, where we have state-controlled liquor.

Supérette’s wine bottle selection / Photograph by Chloé Pantazi-Wolber

I have to give a shout-out to … the smaller importers and distributors who have been willing to work within the parameters of Pennsylvania and have recognized Philadelphia in particular as a market that’s worthwhile — and who are now willing to fight the uphill battle with all of the wine buyers in this town. That has changed dramatically, so we are able to really get our hands on a variety of high-quality products, and we’re working with people, a lot of them ex-restaurant people, who have really tried tirelessly to get good product in front of buyers.

Secondly, being a young mom and also operating multiple businesses at this point, I rely quite heavily on my team, and I think that is an important thing when you find yourself in a management position. As somebody who is wine-focused, I think being able to relinquish some of that control over the labels on your shelves or on your wine list to people you trust diversifies what you’re offering.

Lately, people seem to be interested in … the spectrum of bubbly wine. I find a lot of people coming in and wanting to talk about the differences in pét-nat. I had a guest at one of the friends and family nights ask me about a bottle of bubbly on the wall, and they were like, “Is it big or small bubbles?” I was like, “Wow, that’s such a specific question. I’m so happy that you asked me that.”

I’ve noticed people are interested in talking more about different kinds of sparkling wine, whereas, you know, five to 10 years ago, they’d come in and say, “Oh, I’ll take the Champagne,” but it’s not a Champagne — it’s a crémant from Burgundy. It’s not the same thing. Now, people are asking more questions about sparkling wine, and they’re also more interested and understanding of the price differences, depending on where it’s from.

My favorite bubbly wine that we’re pouring at Supérette right now is … a Slovenian pét-nat sauvignon blanc from the winery, Dorcha.