Blog | HEYDAY EATERY

We have a friend, Nastya, who created OMMA out of her deep passion for Japanese culture and tea. What started as curiosity became a lifelong journey — to understand the art of matcha not just as a drink, but as a way of being.

This summer, we teamed up with our friends at Family & Friends in Miami to create three drinks inspired by long sunny days, fresh flavors, and the feeling that summer should last a little longer. One collaboration, two cities, and the same idea: make every sip feel like a small escape.

Our story with the HEYDAY Sunflowers began in Chicago — during the creation of the very concept of HEYDAY. They were imagined as an art object that would symbolize life, movement, and the energy of bloom — everything that defines our rhythm and spirit. But soon, we realized they could become something bigger — a cultural and charitable gesture. That’s how our Sunflowers found their way to the desert of Nevada, to Burning Man 2025, where art met purpose — in support of the Rescue Now foundation.

The interior of HEYDAY was created by Ukrainian architect Volodymyr Ponomarenko — a space where rhythm, light, and motion shape the experience of every guest. When Volodymyr first stepped into the location — a former Intelligentsia café on the corner of Division and Ashland — the goal wasn’t just to redesign it. It was to rethink how the space could live.

Stainless Steel Sunflowers — an art installation created in Ukraine specifically for this project using hydroforming technology. Their shape was developed already at the concept stage: sketches by Volodymyr Ponomarenko, the project’s author, were first drawn by hand, then digitized and run through a series of 3D simulations. These virtual models made it possible to test proportions and the spatial dynamics of the petals long before physical production began.