Imagine sipping a refreshing celery soda spiked with mezcal on a warm afternoon inside a former movie theater in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties neighborhood.
The vision is quickly becoming reality, as Danny Childs and his wife, Katie, prepare to debut their concept, Field Day, at 923 N. Second St.
Childs is a trained ethnobotanist and founder of Slow Drinks, a company exploring the intersection of plants and cocktails. Slow Drinks is also the title of his cocktail book, published in fall 2023, which went on to win the James Beard Award for Best Cocktail Book with Recipes in summer 2024.
“It’s a hyper-local and hyper-seasonal approach to making drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, using ingredients that are foraged, grown in our garden, or sourced from local farms. When using fresh seasonal ingredients like this, we do a lot of preservation—things like fermentation, infusions, and pickling,” Childs told What Now Philadelphia.
Now, he and his wife are bringing their philosophy and craft of drink-making to life with the opening of their own neighborhood bar.
“We’re really excited to have a place of our own to show what Slow Drinks is in a really approachable and accessible format. We’re really trying to lean into the neighborhood bar vibe,” he said.
The interior is designed to transport guests into nature, with abundant natural wood accents and pops of primary color. Vaulted ceilings will open up the space, anchored by a central bar, with seating for up to 70 people, including bar seating.
“It’s a very long bar, 18 seats and at the center, it’s the focal point of the room,” Childs said. “The building is an old movie theater so its got very high ceilings.”
While the menu will still highlight the processes and foraged ingredients from the Slow Drinks cocktail book, Childs plans to introduce new drinks and ideas not yet explored, creating a forward-thinking program for the city.
“We’re going to have a pretty robust highball [whiskey and soda] program. We’ll have some sodas on tap, clarified cream soda, root beer,” he said. “We’ll also make a lot of our own liqueurs and ferments and have a homemade amaro program.”
When crafting a basic amaro, Childs carefully builds flavor profiles from the ground up. He uses cardoon and wormwood for bitterness; basil, fennel and epazote for herbaceous notes; shiso and fig leaf for spice; yarrow, marigold and lavender for florality; persimmon and apple for sweetness; and lemongrass and hops for a citrus edge. He then packs the botanicals into a jar, tops them with 151-proof alcohol, and lets the mixture sit at room temperature for five weeks.
The duo will also partner with John’s Water Ice and 1-900-Ice-Cream to create boozy gelati, a blend of water ice and soft-serve ice cream.
To pair with the drinks, the menu will feature shareable, elevated bar plates.
“It will be a bar first with food. It’ll be where mostly everything is meant to be shared. It will align with the slow drinks and slow food ethos of local sourcing and seasonal cuisine,” Childs said.
Both look forward to sharing a piece of themselves with the Philadelphia community.
“It’s a very personal space. It’s a very personal concept. There’s a lot of elements from my wife’s background and childhood and elements from mine. It’s just a space that feels like people can get a glimpse into who we are and be able to exist in that,” Childs said.
Field Day is targeting a late summer to early fall opening. Visit the website and follow along on Instagram for the latest updates.
