Haller's restaurant.JPG

Birmingham chef Haller Magee plans to open a restaurant in this space at 2212 Second Ave. North downtown. (Bob Carlton/bcarlton@al.com)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Birmingham chef Haller Magee has signed a lease on a building and is preparing to open a restaurant in downtown Birmingham later this fall, Magee told AL.com this afternoon.

The restaurant, which Magee is calling Grace Revival, will be located at 2212 Second Ave. North, across the street from El Barrio restaurant and bar and in the middle of a burgeoning downtown food and drink scene that also includes Rogue Tavern, Urban Standard, Pale Eddie's Pour House and The Collins bar.

"It seems like a really good area, especially right now," Magee said. "That whole block – blocks, if you will – is on fire. That's where the pulse is right now downtown."

Magee was previously the executive chef at Satterfield's Restaurant in Cahaba Heights before leaving in March after more than nine years there.

Haller Magee was formerly the executive chef at Satterfield's Restaurant, where he worked for more than nine years before leaving in March. (Birmingham News file/Bernard Troncale)

At the time he left Satterfield's, Magee said he hoped his next move would be to open a restaurant of his own.

The name Grace Revival is both a tribute to his grandmother, Grace Haller, and a reference to "the revival of another chapter of my life and the revitalization of what's doing on downtown," Magee said today.

The building was formerly an office space, he said, and he hopes construction on the restaurant will be finished in time for an October opening.

"It's a really beautiful space with an exposed wooden beam ceiling and two different types of really beautiful brick on each side," he said.

Erik Hendon of Hendon+Huckestein Architects is the architect on the project, and Kyle Tyree of Locke General Contractors is the builder, Magee said.

Plans call for the restaurant to seat 82 diners, and it will feature an open kitchen and a chef's counter, Magee said.

The restaurant will serve lunch and dinner and will offer a "progressive Southern" menu similar to what he served at Satterfield's, Magee added.

"It's hard to stray far from the food that I did at Satterfield's, that I would like to think that I helped define," he said. "It's going to be more casual, for sure. . . . No tablecloths, definitely more laid-back and more of my personality will be involved."

To read more stories by Bob Carlton, go here.