French restaurant chain mostly needs supporters up front (9)
I believe the answer is:
brasserie
'french restaurant' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'chain mostly needs supporters up front' is the wordplay.
'chain' becomes 'series'.
'mostly' means to remove the last letter.
'needs supporters' becomes 'bras' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'up front' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'series' with its last letter removed is 'serie'.
'serie' after 'bras' is 'BRASSERIE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for brasserie that I've seen before include "Where to eat" , "Caf" , "Small restaurant serving alcohol as well as food" , "eating place" , "French restaurant" .)