Commerce Kitchen

In downtown Huntsville, at the corner of Franklin Street and Southside Square, Commerce Kitchen has spent more than fifteen years turning out reimagined Southern cooking with a strong seafood accent. The restaurant opened in December 2010 inside a converted storefront that its own description calls a cozy downtown neighborhood gem, the kind of place where regulars know the bartender and first-time visitors are handed a menu built around Gulf ingredients and Southern technique.

Commerce Kitchen is one of several restaurants opened by chef James Boyce and his wife Suzan through their company, Boyce Restaurant Concepts. Boyce spent years cooking in New York, including six years at Le Cirque under Daniel Boulud, before settling in Huntsville and opening Cotton Row Restaurant on the square in 2008. Commerce Kitchen followed two years later as a more casual sibling concept, joined since by Pane e Vino Pizzeria and Grille on Main. All of the Boyce family restaurants remain based in Huntsville, and Commerce Kitchen leans on that fine dining training while keeping prices and atmosphere approachable for a weeknight dinner or a long lunch.

The restaurant is arranged across three distinct spaces: a neighborhood bar for anyone stopping in for a drink and a plate of Fried Green Tomatoes, a dining room, and an outdoor patio for guests who would rather eat within sight of the square. That layout gives Commerce Kitchen more flexibility than a single dining room would, letting a couple grab bar seats on a busy Friday night while a larger party waits on a table inside.

Seafood shows up across the menu at both lunch and dinner. Gulf Shrimp and Grits, built with crispy bacon, sausage, bell pepper, and a parmesan cream sauce, appears on the lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch menus alike, priced between nineteen and twenty-seven dollars. Blackened Redfish, served only at dinner over creamy grits with charred okra and a Cajun cream sauce, runs thirty-two dollars and is one of the kitchen’s more ambitious plates. Moroccan Spiced Salmon, paired with creamy orzo, chickpeas, citrus, and arugula, shows the kitchen’s willingness to pull in flavors from outside the usual Southern playbook, and a Pan Seared NC Trout gives guests a lighter fish option. Starters lean coastal too, with oysters on the half shell served with horseradish and cocktail sauce for eighteen dollars, Cajun buttermilk fried shrimp in a bayou cream sauce, and a tuna tartare tower built with avocado, cucumber, pickled radish, and yuzu soy sauce.

The restaurant is not exclusively a seafood house. Its own description also points to Fried Green Tomatoes and Pimento Cheese as house favorites, and the reimagined Southern cuisine label applies as much to its craft cocktail list and small plates as to its fish and shellfish. Weekend brunch, served Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., turns the same shrimp and grits and salmon dishes into daytime options alongside brunch-specific plates, before the kitchen shifts back to its full dinner menu.

Commerce Kitchen sits at 300 Franklin Street Southeast, within walking distance of the courthouse square, Cotton Row, and the rest of downtown Huntsville’s restaurant row. Monday through Friday hours run from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., with Saturday split between brunch and a 4:00 to 10:00 p.m. dinner service, and Sunday brunch followed by dinner until 8:00 p.m. A downtown location means street parking and nearby public lots rather than a dedicated lot, so visitors planning a Friday or Saturday dinner should build in a few extra minutes to park and walk over. Reservations can be made through Resy, useful during Huntsville’s busier weekend nights downtown, though walk-ins are also welcomed at the bar and smaller tables. The restaurant also handles catering and private events for weddings and corporate functions, and it offers gift cards and online ordering for anyone who wants the same menu delivered to an office or home instead of eaten on the square. Because the restaurant is part of a small, homegrown group rather than an outside chain, the same ownership and kitchen philosophy carries over to its sister restaurants nearby, giving visitors an easy way to sample more of the Boyce family’s cooking on the same trip downtown.