Getting Sophie’s ready Friday are, from left, Tamara Dillard, Sophie’s co-owner; Laura Kate Tutton, Sophie’s social media manager; and Emily Scherba, sales associate.Sophie’s, a North Chattanooga boutique that sells hip home decor, kitchenware, books, stationery and women’s accessories, will open a “pop-up” store today untill Dec. 24 in the vacant Grocery Bar grocery store at 100 W. Main St.
The opening of the temporary store, called Sophie’s Pop-Up Shop, will coincide with this year’s MainX24, a 24-hour long festival that’s been held every December since 2007 to celebrate Main Street and the up-and-coming Southside neighborhood.
“We’re excited,” said Sophie’s co-owner, Tamara Dillard, whose husband, Ryan Dillard, this summer paid $1.3 million for the vacant Grocery Bar building with Kevin Boehm and David Yann.
That’s a fraction of the roughly $4 million it cost to build the 16,000-square-foot grocery store that opened in early 2013 as Enzo’s, which morphed during the summer of 2014 into the Grocery Bar that, in turn, closed in February 2015.
Enzo’s was the first new grocery to open in the Southside in decades and was heralded by its developers as a key to the revitalization and livability of the city’s urban core.