On Saturdays, Seagrape Wine Co. owner Thomas Morgan supplies the wine, the air conditioning and the room. Matt Serrecchio and and Carleigh Simpson arrive with the organic sourdough, Italian sandwiches, salads, pastries and whatever else the week’s ingredients inspired. Before long, the wine shop feels more like a gathering where everyone happens to have excellent taste in bread.

“The pop-up draws in happiness,” Morgan says. “People are immediately swept into the activity.”

Serrecchio’s pops up every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., or until the food sells out, at the independent wine shop Morgan opened in December 2018 at 4333 S. Tamiami Trail. Customers can take their orders home or settle in at one of the shop’s tables, where Seagrape offers a small two-wine flight and a glass for $10.

The arrangement turns the retail wine shop into a casual Saturday lunch spot without requiring either business to become something it isn’t. Serrecchio handles the food, while Morgan continues running the wine shop. Their customers mingle, buy from both businesses, and stay longer than they might have intended.

“There's a true mixing of the local community culture,” Morgan says. Bringing in another independent creative, he adds, is “more engaging for the customer.” 

The simple descriptions of the food on Serrecchio's compact menu can understate the work that goes into making it. A recent menu included the Locanda ($13), a sandwich made with prosciutto di Parma, fior di latte, organic arugula, 18-year-aged balsamic, olive oil and pistachios on rustic, homemade sourdough. Alongside it were a salad of yellow nectarines, heirloom tomatoes and stracciatella ($10); savory crostatas ($8); Gruyère gougère bites, cheesy, savory French bread clouds ($4); browned-butter, double-dark-chocolate cookies with Maldon salt ($4); and homemade loaves of rustic ($13) and sesame sourdough ($14).

The menu grew out of what the Serrecchios were already cooking for themselves.

“It sprung from everyday food that we love, that we want to share,” Matt Serrecchio says. “Simple food, ingredient-focused, some things that we picked up on our travels and the people we’ve met along the way.”

There’s a personal history behind much of the menu. Serrecchio's grandfather grew broccoli rabe, for example, and his father also loved the bitter greens. At the pop-up, it appears in a pesto inspired by Pizzeria Delfina in San Francisco, combined with cured black olives, Parmesan, lemon zest, chile flakes, olive oil and fresh mozzarella.

 Serrecchio likes offering samples and explaining unfamiliar ingredients rather than assuming every customer already knows what a gougère is or has strong feelings about broccoli rabe. “It gets a good rating once people try it,” he says.

Serrecchio grew up in Hollywood, Florida, in Broward County before moving to California. In San Francisco, he worked at the city's beloved Bi-Rite Market, first stocking produce and later managing produce inventory and working directly with farms. The job immersed him in a community of chefs, farmers, butchers and bakers whose conversations revolved around what was growing, what tasted best and what everyone else was cooking.

The acclaimed Tartine Bakery was located two storefronts down from the market. Serrecchio had friends who worked there, and the neighboring businesses sometimes traded produce for bread and pastries. Serrecchio remembers waiting for Tartine’s bread window to open at 5 p.m. so he could secure a loaf before it sold out.

“It set the standard for what good bread should taste like,” he says, “and whatever little item you put on it tasted amazing.” That influence is evident in Serrecchio’s naturally leavened loaves and sandwiches, which are assembled on organic sourdough baked just hours earlier. 

The Serrecchios returned to Florida in May 2021. After several years of cooking for neighbors and friends, they formally launched Serrecchio’s in late May of this year. The business operates from Tamiami Trail Catering in the Rosemary District, a shared commercial kitchen. Serrecchio had seen similar arrangements help small chocolate, confectionery and coffee companies get started in San Francisco. In Sarasota, the shared kitchen provided what he calls the “unlock” for turning an idea into a licensed food business.

For now, he isn’t rushing toward a permanent storefront. He says the immediate work is to refine the food, learn Florida’s growing seasons and build relationships with customers and producers. He has purchased from Jessica’s Organic Farmstand and St. Petersburg-based Solana Cheese Company, and has reached out to other Florida farms as he learns what thrives here and when.

“We’re connecting with people and building trust and sharing and feeding," he says.

Serrecchio’s joins a pop-up culture at Seagrape that Morgan is quick to credit to Michael and Claire Calvino of Spare Kitchen, his longest-running collaborators. Their Thursday night, fish-sandwich events have continued through bad weather, unpredictable attendance and the practical limits of a tiny family-run operation.

The Calvinos helped show Serrecchio what a partnership with Seagrape could look like. He had attended their Thursday fish-sandwich events before approaching Morgan about his own idea for a pop-up.

“I saw that relationship and connected with that,” Serrecchio says. “I always had Seagrape in mind as a place to partner with because of the crossover in the style of food and the style of wine being simpatico.”

Morgan applies a similar level of care to what’s poured beside their food. Seagrape specializes in limited-production wines, particularly French and Italian bottles. He says he looks for “wines of provenance,” with a traceable path from grapevine to bottle, and for bottles with intrinsic value beyond a polished marketing story.

But customers don’t have to drink wine to attend the pop-up. Those who do can choose the tasting, order another glass or buy a bottle at retail price and open it at the shop without restaurant markup or a corkage fee. The result is a place where someone may arrive for bread and leave knowing something about an obscure European wine—or vice versa.

“You can come to this third space and learn,” Morgan says. “We’re going to talk, and we're all going to nerd out on flavors together.”

Serrecchio describes the gatherings as “a little weekly party." The aim is to make carefully sourced, skillfully prepared food feel welcoming rather than precious—what he describes as “elevating the ordinary.”

“Sometimes a wine shop [can be] intimidating,’” Serrecchio says. “But it’s fun for us to break that stereotype and connect with people.”

Once the sandwiches are unwrapped and the wine is poured, intimidation doesn’t stand much of a chance. Conversations cross the room, strangers begin comparing what they ordered and a quick local shop run takes possession of the afternoon.

Stay updated on food pop ups at Seagrape Wine Co. here and learn more about Serrecchio's here.