Food

Nightshade Noodle Bar owner opens Sin City Superette in Lynn

Chef Rachel Miller brings groceries and other necessities to downtown Lynn.

Sin City Superette aims to make healthy foods and necessities more accessible in its Lynn neighborhood. Courtesy

July 15, 2022

Chef Rachel Miller recently opened Sin City Superette, a community market offering grocery staples, household essentials, and grab-n-go food in downtown Lynn.

Adjacent to Nightshade Noodle Bar, Sin City Superette aims to make healthy foods and necessities more accessible in the neighborhood, accepting EBT payments and keeping items as affordable as possible. Miller is also partnering with many local purveyors, like farmers and fishers.

Miller has operated Nightshade Noodle Bar for almost three years at 73 Exchange St. in Lynn—before then Nightshade was a pop-up, booking dinners on the North Shore for two and a half years.

Chef Rachel Miller has recently opened Sin City Superette in Lynn. – Courtesy

Nightshade combines Vietnamese and French cuisine in a fine-dining setting, serving a tasting menu heavy on seafood and noodle dishes.

For Miller and her team, the pandemic highlighted a lack of affordable and accessible breakfast spots in Lynn, plus a need for quick and nutritious lunches and household staples. Sin City Superette was born of an aim to fill that void.

Their raw, hot, and cold prepared foods include breakfast sandwiches, yogurt parfaits, sandwiches, salads, burgers (regular and vegan), and Sin City Sushi, a HACCP-certified operation within the superette, operating five days a week, stocking both grab-n-go sushi and made-to-order lunch and dinner items.

Groceries range from pantry staples and fresh produce to curated fresh seafood items like Maine lobster, Carabinero prawns from Portugal, and live Dungeness crab from Washington. The superette even stocks caviar, aiming to normalize high-quality, affordable caviar, says Miller.

“It means a lot to me to provide everyday essentials, affordable raw, hot, and cold prepared foods, and offer more EBT to my neighborhood as we all continue to recover from the pandemic,” said Miller in a statement.

Sin City also sells what they call “loosies,” individual essentials like Advil and other medicine, feminine hygiene products, batteries, shampoo, tape, condoms, and facial tissues.

Miller grew up on the Virginia coast, discovering her love for cooking at a small restaurant where she also learned the value of locally-sourced food.

She moved to Boston to pursue butchering at Lionetti’s in the South End, also working in the kitchens of Clio and Bondir before launching Nightshade.

Last summer, amid rising COVID-19 cases, she implemented a mandatory vaccination policy for indoor diners at Nightshade.

Miller said that since the pandemic clobbered the local community, Sin City Superette came about after “realizing that we could be so much more useful to the community, while creating more jobs in our growing neighborhood, if we rearranged our resources and extended our reach.”

The Superette describes itself in a statement as “a true convenience store,” where customers can “converse with neighbors, read community bulletins and pick up quick, easy meals and groceries.”

Sin City will soon offer delivery, potentially waiving the delivery fee for the elderly or those with disabilities. The store is located at 71 Exchange St. in Lynn. Visit them at sincitysuperette.com or @sincitysuperette on Instagram or Facebook.