The Church Street Family, one of Huntsville’s most prominent collections of wining and dining establishments, is eagerly anticipating the opening of its two newest family members.

Stephanie Kennedy-Mell announced the upcoming opening of a second location of the Church Street Wine Shoppe in the Village of Providence at 485 Providence Main St NW, Suite 101. The new store, which will be called Church Street Wine Bar & Bottle Shoppe, has a planned opening date of April 12 and will be modeled after the original location at 501 Church Street in Downtown Huntsville.

Kennedy-Mell said that she decided to expand to Providence because of its continuing growth, adding that a lot of customers in Huntsville were asking for a new location closer to Madison.

“When the opportunity arose for this particular space, Matt [her husband] and I came in and took a look and we thought it was a really good fit and a great next step for the Church Street Family.” She added that this will be the first location outside of the Downtown Huntsville area.

“We’re excited to be here; I know the community as a whole has been very excited and very, very welcoming,” she added.

The new outlet will feature many of the same trademark features as its parent store, including wall racks that hold bottles horizontally in order to show off their full labels; a selection of local beers, “a small, fun menu” of food, tapas items, and desserts; a focus on local artists and musicians; and a relaxed, fun ‘come as you are,’ unpretentious vibe. TVs will provide entertainment for people sitting at the bar and lounge seats will provide visitors with a comfortable, homey place to sit and chat.

Personal service and a hands-on approach are also hallmarks of Church Street Wine Shoppe and its sister store: “if you’ve never drank wine before or you’re just starting to get into wine, you can walk into one of our wine shops and someone will hold your hand and walk you through, you know, not make you feel like you don’t know anything. Everyone has to start somewhere. And I kind of love those customers anyway because it’s a lot of fun to start figuring out their palate little by little,” she said. “Our goal is to kind of start to get you a little out of your comfort zone so you can start to expand your palate, so you can have a little more fun with wine.”

The Church Street Wine Bar & Bottle Shoppe will also feature an outdoor patio where patrons can enjoy their food and drink al fresco while listening to live music. Kennedy-Mell said that there will be at least two live performances a week featuring local musicians.

The Providence location will be open for lunch and dinner, with wine flights available seven days a week. It will also feature a by-the-glass wine list, specialty pop-up specialty wine tastings, four-flavor wine flights, and a wine club offering five-course sit-down wine tastings with food pairings. In addition, the Church Street Wine Bar & Bottle Shoppe will offer event spaces, even allowing part of or even the entire space to be reserved for special events.

Like its sister store, local art will be an integral part of the Providence location. Kennedy-Mell, who did the majority of the design for all of the company’s restaurants and bars, noted its signature warm golden yellow walls, saying that in seven years of putting art on the Church Street Wine Shoppe’s walls she’s found that every piece of art looks amazing against that color.

“We typically have an artist in house. They stay for three months for their showing time. All of their art is for sale, and we typically do one day within their three-month showing that’s a ‘meet the artist,’ and the artist comes in and we’ll do a fundraiser for the charity of the artist’s choice on that night. So you get to meet them, you get to give back to a local charity they love, so they feel like they’re not just selling art, they’re helping out their favorite charities as well,” she explained.

Many of the artists come from Lowe Mill. Kennedy said that the current featured artist at the original Church Street Wine Shoppe is Jeff White, a local photographer who also works for Event Magazine and does wedding and event photography.

In addition to the Church Street Wine Bar & Bottle Shoppe, Kennedy-Mell revealed an entirely new restaurant offering, Famous Eleanors, which will open later in April. She explained that it’s named in homage to a number of different women associated with rocket science, space, and aviation, as well as the grandmother of Kennedy-Mell’s husband.

“When you Google ‘famous Eleanors in Rocket Science,’ you’ll be surprised at how many actually do pop up,” she said, noting astronomer Eleanor Francis Helin; Eleanor Sigrest, who won a major award for her groundbreaking rocket nozzle research as a middle school student in 2016; and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who flew with Tuskegee Airman Charles Alfred Anderson, “The Father of Black Aviation,” on an hour-long flight over Alabama in order to demonstrate her support for Black pilots and the Institute’s training program.

In addition to the famous Eleanors in STEM, Kennedy-Mell included her husband’s grandmother Eleanor in the list, explaining “Matthew’s grandmother’s name is Eleanor, and she’ll be my last ‘famous Eleanor’ because without her we wouldn’t have Matt, and then we wouldn’t have all of the Church Street Families.”

Famous Eleanors will be housed within Rocket Republic in Downtown HSV on 617 Meridian St N.

The Church Street Family’s upcoming attraction, which is currently nearing completion, will feature what Kennedy-Mell described as “elevated pub food” and will be served with Rocket Republic’s signature beer selection. “We will be exclusively a kitchen at Rocket Republic,” Kennedy-Mell said.

While Rocket Republic will house the indoor dining area for Famous Eleanors, Kennedy-Mell stated that it has “what I would call one of the best patios in Downtown Huntsville that no one knows is even there, but we’re gonna change that because it’s a beautiful outside patio.”

Famous Eleanors will also feature a phone app that will allow customers to see a menu, order, and pay for their food. Customers will then pick up their orders at the window.

Although she has not yet disclosed any further details, the Church Street Family is planning further expansion later in 2022, which will bring its total number of outlets to nine by the end of the year. In addition to the two Church Street Wine Shoppe locations and the forthcoming Famous Eleanors, the Church Street Family’s other offerings include Mazzara’s Vinoteca, Purveyor, Pourhouse, the Catacomb435 speakeasy, and Sea Salt Urban Oyster Bar.

When asked whether she would recommend Huntsville to other people considering starting a small business, Kennedy-Mell responded “as somebody who by the end of this year will have nine different [restaurant and bar] concepts, all small, I guess it would be crazy for me to say no.”

She continued “I think it’s a great market. It’s a very open market, I mean very open-minded, meaning that people are excited for new things, looking for new things. I’m excited for Huntsville’s growth, not only from the business perspective, but from the residential perspective.”

Kennedy-Mell stated that people in the South travel and know what they want, but “after the pandemic especially, they’re looking to stay home. And if we can give them a reason to not have to leave Huntsville and they can have these stay-cations, then I’ve done my job.”

Kennedy-Mell added “People used to come into Huntsville and drop their kids off at Space Camp and then they’d be like ‘let’s go to Nashville.’ And I think we’re starting to see more and more people be like ‘okay, let’s go to Downtown, let’s go to MidCity, let’s go to Providence, right? So I do think that small businesses add kind of the color to the palette that makes a city really interesting and fun and unique. Yes, there are chains downtown but there’s nothing like a small business with a unique perspective of what they want to bring to the city.”

Church Street Wine Bar & Bottle Shoppe is currently searching for new employees.

“We’ll teach you wine. We’re looking for passionate people more so than anything else,” Kennedy-Mell said, adding “We’re super excited to be part of the Providence community–we already have relationships with some of the businesses here and they’ve been so open and so gracious, so we’re really excited and it’s going to be a fun community.”

She related a statement by a woman she interviewed for a marketing position: “I thought it was the best take on Huntsville with the growth, since we were just talking about that. She said her son said ‘you know, Huntsville’s like that old ex-girlfriend that got hot again.’ You know, that’s such a great description of Huntsville. We’re excited to be part of that growth at Church Street Family.”