As Chicago prepares for the opening of the Obama Presidential Center on June 19, one mile south, artist Theaster Gates will launch two new hospitality concepts created with the entrepreneur Heiji Choy Black, his longtime friend.
Opening on June 5, Han Cha, a Korean-inspired high tea salon, and Yunomi, a companion cocktail bar and lounge, are the latest addition to Gates’ nearly two-decade ambition to build a cultural corridor on the city’s South Side.
Choy Black said she hopes the two new concepts will boost the South Side’s profile for dining, but also serve as “a welcoming gateway into the neighborhood.” The Obama Presidential Center will also have a fine-dining restaurant and cafes spearheaded by chef Cliff Rome.
Gates’ suite of South Side properties has been the site of many spaces and ideas over the years. What started with a handful of rehabilitated buildings on Dorchester Avenue in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood in 2009 has expanded into a constellation of properties. Nearby, the Arts Bank on 67th Street, which houses the Johnson Publishing library, has long hovered between a public and private site, operating with sporadic public hours and programming.
Late last year, Gates announced the opening of the Land School, a 40,000-square-foot arts space inside a former Catholic elementary school where Gates’ foundation, Rebuild, now hosts regular public events.
But it was the impending opening of the Obama Presidential Center just north in Jackson Park that spurred a conversation between Gates and Choy Black last summer about how to reimagine the Arts Bank space and bring more foot traffic.
“Theaster wondered aloud to me whether I would be interested in partnering with him in re-envisioning what the Arts Bank could be,” Choy Black said. “I got very excited about the possibilities, and how Stony Island as an avenue could be transformed with this major new institution coming in. It just seemed like a really exciting opportunity.”
The timing was also fortuitous for Choy Black personally. In 2024, she shuttered Jeune Otte, the environmentally conscious fashion label she co-founded with Elise Bergman. Choy Black and her husband are investors in Bergman’s distillery, Judson & Moore, and her husband, Brian, is one of the founders of Half Acre Beer Company. Hospitality, she said, has long interested her — particularly the possibility of creating the kind of open-ended gathering spaces she remembers from her childhood in Seoul.
Tea, she said, offers a kind of meditative quiet that both she and Gates are drawn to.
The aesthetic of the new tea room reflects that philosophy. Choy Black describes the space as serene, textile-heavy and deeply intentional — “escaping to a space in Seoul,” as she put it.
Inside Han Cha, guests will encounter a carefully choreographed two-hour tea service inspired by Korean cafe culture. “This is not like a coffee house or tea space where you’re bringing your laptop and looking at your phone,” she said. “This is really more of an experience.”
The prix fixe menu, priced at $75 per person, will feature teas from the Chicago company Spirit Tea alongside pastries and savory bites by former Momotaro pastry chef Jessica Vasquez and collaborator Marguerite Singson. Choy Black described the offerings as a play on English high tea filtered through East Asian flavors: black sesame cookies, ginger-miso tea cakes and Korean-influenced savory dishes.
The bar next door, Yunomi — named after a style of Japanese tea cup — will serve cocktails built around spirits from Judson & Moore and beer from Half Acre.
Choy Black, who invested equally with Gates in the venture, will also serve as the Arts Bank’s creative director and operator, overseeing hospitality, merchandise, installations and broader programming throughout the building. Visitors will be able to enter the Arts Bank, she said, through a ticketed reservation system with a suggested $10 donation, half of which will support Rebuild Foundation programming.
The new Arts Bank’s public hours will mirror the hospitality program: Thursday through Saturday from noon to 8 p.m., with tea service seatings throughout the day, and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m.
