By Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Jordan Wald
In just a few short months since opening in December 2024, Miss Astrid’s Tavern has established itself as a part of Cahaba Heights’ heartbeat, a community spot for a great meal and conversation in a setting that is at once relaxed, funky, upscale and homey.
Owned and operated by Denise Boley, a longtime Cahaba Heights resident and business owner, and her business partner Richard Edge, Miss Astrid’s Tavern is somewhat hidden in the back of the building housing Boley’s hair salon, Resultz Day Spa. Despite the limited visibility from the road, and a plan to slowly build the tavern’s reputation, Boley says the community discovered Miss Astrid’s practically the moment they opened for business.
“We intentionally started slow,” admits Boley. “We kept thinking we were going to have like a soft opening, but people just kept coming, and we were like, okay this rhythm is good.” Miss Astrid’s Tavern was named in honor of Edge’s mother, Astrid Smyer. Born in London, Astrid’s family moved to Gloucestershire during the Blitz in 1940, she was an English debutante in the 1950s, and she emigrated to the Birmingham area in the early 1970s with her husband, Sidney (Billy) W. Smyer.
In recent years, Astrid had been a regular client of Boley’s at her salon. Boley, whose mother passed at a relatively young age, says she “adopted” Astrid, and the two become close friends. During this time, Boley and Edge discussed ideas to turn the back half of the building into a tavern as an homage to Astrid’s roots in Great Britain, where pubs and taverns are as common as barbecue joints in the South. When Astrid died in 2021, Boley and Edge knew their tavern should honor this fascinating person.
“She (Astrid) was a great woman,” says Boley during a moment of downtime between the lunch service and dinner. “When she passed away, Richard asked me ‘Do you still want to do that tavern?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do. I think it would be great for Cahaba Heights to have something like that.’”
“When you go to a tavern, you see three generations; grandparents, parents, and kids running around, and I think people just like that,” Boley adds. “This community is so fun and always doing festivals, and we’re in the entertainment district, it just made sense to do this.”
Situated in an old house, the restaurant’s dining area and bar are on the main floor, with tables set on the back deck overlooking the parking lot. Boley and Edge are in the process of converting much of the parking lot. Edge says they recently received approval from the City of Vestavia Hills to build a second bar under the deck and expects to have up to 14 beers on tap, mostly from breweries throughout Alabama.
Additionally, Edge says they have hired a landscape architecture firm to turn the area into an entertainment space, including a pavilion for live music, and they are working on a more casual food menu.
“The hope is that by the end of April or early May, we’ll have an outdoor area where people can bring the children, sit outside, and enjoy a beer and some sort of bar food,” Edge says.
“Bringing people together through good food and laughter, just makes me happy,” Boley says. “It makes me happy to make other people happy.”
To run the kitchen, Boley hired Jessica Armstrong, a friend and chef with two decades of experience in restaurants and country clubs, including a stint as the executive chef of Anniston Country Club. Armstrong drew upon her unique experience to develop Miss Astrid’s menu, a style she affectionately calls “upscale how’s your momma and ‘em.” Additionally, Armstrong assembled an excellent staff whom she encourages to be creative, a trait Boley says has contributed to the tavern’s identity.
Miss Astrid’s Tavern is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for brunch and features a take on the meat-and-three. Diners can choose from a selection of meats, including fried chicken, hamburger steak and grilled salmon and classic vegetables like fried okra, squash casserole and Old Bay mac ‘n cheese.
The brunch menu also offers sandwiches, such as a steak sandwich with blue cheese cream, Boursin cheese and arugula, and the Heinz 57 Wagyu smashburger, with American cheese, grilled onions, pickles, brown sugar and chili aioli.
The restaurant reopens for dinner at 5 p.m. with a menu featuring Armstrong’s signature dish, Southern pork roulade. The dish, which Armstrong says she worked on for two years, features a pork tenderloin with collard greens, green apple, ham, candied bacon, sweet potato and green apple gratin and Brussels sprouts. Other dinner options include sliced tenderloin with mushrooms, Yukon gold potatoes, broccolini and a mushroom broth and halibut with grilled broccolini, cauliflower puree, quinoa and a bacon vinaigrette.
With 40 years of experience in the service industry, it’s clear that Boley truly enjoys coming to work every day. “Everything is falling into place, and (the tavern) has the feeling we wanted it to have,” Boley says. “If somebody seems a little unhappy when they arrive,” she adds, “I feel like I’ve won if I can get them to smile and be happy when they leave.”
Miss Astrid’s Tavern is located at
3160 Pipeline Road in Cahaba Heights
