Chef Steven Satterfield Dishes About The Time Mick Jagger Walked Into His Atlanta Restaurant

Savannah native Steven Satterfield is the chef and co-owner of the award winning Atlanta restaurant, Miller Union. In the latest episode of Southern Living’s podcast, Biscuits & Jam, Satterfield opens up about his unusual path from touring musician in the 90s pop band Seely to a second career in the culinary world. One night, the music world collided with Satterfield’s culinary one when one of the most legendary rock stars of all time walked into his restaurant. 

Satterfield told Southern Living editor-in-chief Sid Evans, that with about 15 minutes notice, “someone came to the front, to the host stand, and said, ‘Hey, I, I need a table for five. And, just so you know, Mick Jagger is a part of that table.’" 

After a few minutes of confusion and disbelief, the team at Miller Union worked with Jagger’s bodyguards to devise a plan to get him into the restaurant and seated without drawing too much attention. 

“They asked if they could bring him through the kitchen… There's a door between the kitchen and the patio, and there's a table just outside of it that was free. And so, they're telling us, ‘He's on the way. He'll be here in five minutes.’”

Satterfield continued. “ They brought him through the kitchen… There's a little pass between the walk-in cooler and the line where the griller guy stands, and the fryer's right there. And he walked right by the fryer and right by my station. He had people all around him, just like an amoeba-kind of like guiding him. And nobody saw him come in and onto the patio because of the way they hover around him.  They kinda just keep him covered. He's kind of a short guy so it's easy to cover [him] up,” he said with a laugh. 

They seated him in a banquette on the patio that is next to a half wall. Jagger sat behind the half wall and the other restaurant patrons had no idea who was dining beside them. 

"He was great. Like, super nice, really happy to be there. He was enjoying the food,” Satterfield said. As the chef was walking by on the patio, one of Jagger’s security detail pulled him aside and said, "’Hey, this place is amazing. We love this food. Mick's really loving it. You should go say hello.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I, I don't wanna bother him. He's in the middle of talking with his friends, and I just feel like I would be interrupting.’ He's like, ‘No, no, no, you should really say hello. He would love to meet you,’" he explained. 

“I went over to the table and just checked in on them. He was super nice. He asked me a couple of questions about the restaurant and what we do.”

As Jagger and his entourage were getting ready to leave, Satterfield garnered the nerves to ask the British rockstar for a photo. One of the bodyguards took Satterfield’s phone to snap the shot. 

“At the time, it was still during the pandemic, and we had our masks on. I was like, ‘let's take our masks off just for this photo.’ And so we both took them down. He was smiling, grinning from ear to ear…It is the best photograph. And it felt great because it was the eve of our anniversary, and we were already in a celebratory mood, and, Gosh, Mick Jagger came in? It just felt like... he was there to celebrate with us, but really, they were just playing in town, and somebody told him he should eat there.”

He ended the story with, “it was a thrill, such a thrill.”

We bet it was! 

Download and listen to this episode of Biscuits & Jam with Steven Satterfield on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or everywhere podcasts are available.