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Photos by Erin Nelson.
Guests enjoy lunch March 9 at Satterfield’s in Cahaba Heights, with a wall of family photographs seen in the background. “They all tell a story,” Milyn Satterfield Little said of the photos. “It’s where we all evolved.” The restaurant recently underwent renovations with the interior decor, the addition of a private dining room and patio seating.
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Photos by Erin Nelson.
Milyn Satterfield Little, of Creative Design Properties and R. Little Construction, back left, holds her 10-month-old daughter Lola Little as she stands beside Jessica Mackin of Nadeau Birmingham, Becky Satterfield, owner, seated at left, and Leah Harrigan, general manager of the restaurant, at Satterfield’s patio.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
A cabinet in the bar displays the name Satterfield’s.
Satterfield’s reopens after remodel, offers new lunch options
At Satterfield’s, family is in the design.
The Satterfield family plays a leading role at the restaurant, owned by Becky Satterfield. Her daughter, Milyn Satterfield Little, along with Little’s husband, Ricky, also help. And now, after a remodel last year, family photos adorn the wall of the dining establishment in the heart of Cahaba Heights.
Satterfield’s stepfather, Dude Hennessey, a former assistant coach for University of Alabama legend Paul “Bear” Bryant, is in a photo on the wall. Chef Chris Harrigan and his wife Leah, who is the restaurant’s general manager, have their wedding photo hanging along with dozens of other photos telling the story of the Satterfield’s family, both biological and chosen, including the Harrigans and Jessica Mackin, who helped renovate the restaurant’s interior as part of her job with Nadeau Birmingham.
Becky Satterfield’s numerous awards also line part of the wall, but it is family that plays a key role, because it is family that has kept the restaurant going, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is family that led Satterfield to a love of cooking that has led to such a successful career.
“I was cooking when I was standing in a chair,” Satterfield said.
The interior remodel came about when the family realized there was a need to go in a different direction when it came to art. With Little’s background in filmmaking, she saw the value in using old black and white photographs.
“They all tell a story,” Little said of the photos. “It’s where we all evolved.”
The photographs have been a hit with customers. For one customer in particular, the picture with Dude Hennessy was especially meaningful. The 1961 photograph shows Alabama coaches Hennessy, Howard Schnellenberger, Charley Laslie, head of the Alabama Highway Patrol Joe Smelley and a former Alabama player, Steve Allen, celebrating the Tide’s first win over the University of Tennessee since 1954, a dominant 34-3 performance that was the largest margin of victory over Tennessee since their 51-0 win in 1906. When the customer saw the picture, she recognized her father, Allen. She had never seen the photo before.
Doing the renovations was a family affair as well. It took all hands on deck to swap out not just the artwork, but to redesign the lighting, change the entry space, install partitions at the bar, install other COVID-19 precautions and more. That was especially true in the several weeks the restaurant was closed for renovations.
“We basically lived here in January,” Little said. “It was just a group effort.”
One of the other key changes is the installation of the new bar in the lounge area. It’s made of metallic gold that was featured in Architectural Digest and on HGTV, Little said. The group also installed a “selfie wall” for people to be able to take pictures and remember their trip to the restaurant.
Little and Mackin helped come up with the design, with Ricky helping execute that vision with his construction company, R. Little Construction.
After many months and “thousands of texts,” the restaurant reopened in January 2021.
Work isn’t completely done. The group continues trying to make Satterfield’s the best it can be. Little said the patio will be revamped, and they’ll have café lights, raise the height of the wall and place greenery on the wall to create a more intimate feel and allow guests to dine at night.
In addition to changing the look of the restaurant, Satterfield’s also has begun offering a new lunch and dinner menu, changing to a meat-and-three at lunch to go along with their traditional fine dining options at dinner. The restaurant also eventually will offer delivery within a 5-mile radius, Satterfield said.
When the restaurant reopened, it was like welcoming back old friends, Satterfield said.
“A lot of people hadn’t been here in years,” she said.
The decision to offer a meat-and-three menu stemmed from a community desire for one, something that Cahaba Heights hadn’t had since the closing of Heights Café years ago.
“Overwhelmingly, people want a meat-and-three,” Satterfield said.
Satterfield, who also owns El Zun Zun in Cahaba Heights, said people have referred to their lunch offering as an “elevated meat-and-three.”
The Harrigans, along with sous chef Liz Brody, came on board after the remodel and brought decades of experience with them.
The new dinner menu focuses on fresh, seasonal and local ingredients and includes items such as winter squash cappellacci pasta with maitake mushroom confit, porcini jus, parmesan and crispy sage; char grilled octopus served atop avocado toast with black garlic, chorizo, watercress and Spanish sherry vinaigrette; Southern fried Ashley Farms chicken livers-n-onions with crispy tobacco onions and spicy aioli; and blood orange, almond and endive salad with shaved fennel, ricotta salata cheese, toasted almonds and citrus vinaigrette.
Lunch, offered Tuesday through Saturday, offers more of a rotating menu. Leah Harrigan said it depends on what’s fresh and available that day. Menu items include soups and salads, grilled teres major steak, chicken scallopini, sauteed Gulf shrimp, house burger, fish of the day and more. Diners can choose from sides such as pinto beans with smoked peppers, fried green tomatoes and Cajun aioli, squash casserole, McEwen & Son’s corn grits and much more, the restaurant said in a release at the time of reopening.
While family plays a key role in the leadership of Satterfield’s, family is also a value Satterfield wants to share with the Cahaba Heights community as a whole as they prepare food for them.
“We’re breaking bread with the community,” Satterfield said.
For more information, visit satterfieldsrestaurant.com.
