Ukrainian Restaurant Owners Find New Opportunities in Chicago

After opening and running two fast-food businesses in Lviv, Ukraine, Roman and Maria Semeniv were excited to debut a more ambitious restaurant. Three weeks after the restaurant opened, Russia invaded Ukraine. A year later in 2023, the couple sold everything and moved to the U.S.

“We want a better future for our kids, and in Ukraine, I don’t see a possibility for them to grow,” says Roman Semeniv. “It’s my responsibility to give them a chance to live in a different community and not in a constant war.”

The couple opted for Chicago due to its large Ukrainian community, including some well-established Ukrainian companies in the logistics sector. “We knew Chicago would be the easiest place to open a restaurant because our community is here and we believe that other people would come and support us,” continues Semeniv. In September, their small coffee bar and cafe, Kazka, opened in Lakeview.

Starting a hospitality business in Chicago isn’t for the faint of heart. Between finding the right location, navigating bureaucratic red tape, and creating a menu that (fingers crossed) resonates with diners, it’s daunting even before the doors open. And once they do, finding and holding onto employees gets added to the mix — to say nothing of the inevitable increases in ingredient prices and, well, everything else too. Those obstacles didn’t stop the owners of three new spots — Lakeview’s Kazka, Wicker Park’s Heyday, and Lincoln Park’s Abrah — from pursuing their dreams of owning a restaurant here. The similar timing of their ventures is only a small part of what they have in common: They all fled Ukraine to start anew here.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, an increasing number of Ukrainians have emigrated to Chicago, bringing their interpretations of cuisine and business with them. The Consulate General of Ukraine tells Eater in an email that an estimated “35[,000] to 40,000 temporarily displaced persons from Ukraine have arrived in Illinois since the beginning of the full-scale offensive against Ukraine.” As a result, Chicago’s seen a minor boom in Ukrainian-owned restaurants within the city with menus representing a modern Ukrainian experience.

The Semenivs didn’t immediately leap into business. They spent time driving around the city to better understand its neighborhoods and the rhythms of each. Roman Semeniv did a deep dive on the various local laws and codes. “It’s much more complicated than in Ukraine as we don’t have that many regulations,” he said. Kazka passed its inspection on its first try.

Since opening in September, the restaurant has seen strong turnout on weekends from fellow Ukrainians, although weekdays can be quiet.

At Kazka, like at the other places featured here, making as much in-house as possible is a priority. That includes the variety of croissants and macarons as well as specialty cakes and cookies. Savory items include shakshuka, eggs Benedict, and egg bowls. Kazka collaborated with Chicago’s Metric Coffee for its coffee program. “For us, it’s very important to focus on the ingredients we use,” Roman Semeniv says. “This is the concept we created and that’s the concept we believe in.” One of Kazka’s top-sellers is syrnyky, a Ukrainian-style pancake crafted from farmer cheese custom-cultured by a local Ukrainian-owned dairy. About 50 percent of those sold are to non-Ukrainians, a pleasant surprise for Roman.

While Kazka means “fairy tale” in Ukrainian — “We wanted to create a small fairy tale in your daily life,” says Semeniv — that doesn’t mean the horrors the couple left behind are forgotten. “People here don’t understand how deep the conflict is,” he says, adding that Russia has been invading Ukraine for 300 years. “It’s not just a picture on TV or YouTube; it’s the real world. I saw Russian missiles go over my head. Every day people die, and everyone needs to do everything they can to stop it.”

Mykhailo Chernomorets knows that feeling of urgency around the conflict all too well. Before the invasion, Chernomorets had three restaurants in his native Kharkiv — the first established in 2020, with the goal of creating a space where people with developmental disabilities could find work opportunities. “We chose a restaurant not because we dreamed about a restaurant; it was more because it was the best opportunity to show to the world what we were trying to do,” he says.

But in 2022, when the invasion began, Chernomorets found himself converting the basement of his largest establishment into a hub for those evacuated from the front lines. It also acted as a collection and distribution center for emergency supplies like food and medicine. That philanthropic undertaking led to the creation of Rescue Now, an international organization still supplying aid to Ukraine. To take the organization globally, Chernomorets established a 501(c)(3) charity in Illinois, where his brother has lived for more than 15 years. When Russia destroyed the dam in Kherson, Rescue Now was one of the first humanitarian organizations to arrive on the scene.

Chernomorets’s first six months in Chicago were spent living in Wicker Park, which proved fortuitous when he and his business partner, Oleksiy Lysenko, began laying the groundwork for what would become Heyday. “That’s how I fell in love in Chicago and that’s why I dreamed to open my first project here in Wicker Park,” says Chernomorets.

Located in a former Intelligentsia Coffee space, Heyday, which opened in September, is a counter-service all-day breakfast spot with specialty coffee beverages and matcha drinks using tea sourced directly from Japan. Its mod interior design is courtesy of a well-known Ukrainian architect and features large stainless steel sunflowers, Ukraine’s national flower.

To help get their project off the ground, Chernomorets and Lysenko reached out to those in the local Ukrainian community. They also received guidance from Anelya’s Johnny Clark, who created a Michelin-starred Avondale restaurant to honor his Ukrainian grandmother after visiting her hometown of Kharkiv. “I was so personally moved by the war that I felt compelled to share that with everyone I could,” says Clark of Anelya’s inspiration. “I wanted to help give Ukrainians the unique identity they desire.”

The partners collaborated with a Ukrainian chef in California for Heyday’s menu. It features a mix of egg sandwiches, Benedict jars, and egg burritos, most of which hover around $12, with add-ons like house-cured lox and maple-glazed bacon. On the second floor of the small space is a production kitchen where items like croissants, flavored cheesecakes, and a super-creamy matcha tiramisu are made. “We wanted to create a menu for every nationality,” says Chernomorets.

Like Kazka, Ukraine is represented in the syrnyky topped with seasonal berries and sour cream. “It’s what you can find in any home in Ukraine,” he adds.

For Chernomorets, it’s important for Americans to understand that Ukraine is not Russia. “We are a country with our own history, language, culture, and food.”

Before they opened the all-day cafe and bakery, Abrah, in June 2025, Artur and Iryna Yuzvik had a head start. More than a year prior, they had established themselves with neighboring Soloway Coffee, which still has lines out the door on the weekends.

Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Abrah’s menu finds influence in France, Scandinavia, and Ukraine with nods to American dishes, too. Turkish-style eggs (poached eggs with dill yogurt, caramelized olives, and cherry tomatoes) have become a popular morning item. Like at Soloway, baked goods are in high demand, and range from cruffins and cinnamon rolls to pies. The Yuzviks have added breads that are made in-house — think focaccia, malt with cranberries, and a dark bread made with Guinness beer — as well as frozen items, such as chicken Kyiv, varenyky (dumplings), syrnyky, and hearty soups. Look for macarons soon in the frozen food case. Jars of pistachio paste, salted caramel, and almond paste line the shelves in the market area. “We’re trying to say that Ukraine is still here, we are from Ukraine, and this is our approach to this business market,” Artur Yuzvik says.

This past summer, Abrah started experimenting with special outdoor pop-up events, creating a special dish and drink and bringing in a DJ. In one case, a Borsch & Varenyky party featured specials like cherry varenyky, Ukrainian borsch, and Kyiv cake paired with a DJ spinning Ukrainian Afro-house music. With the patio now closed for the season, wine tastings and perhaps even a wine pairing with their sweets are in the works.

“If you want to be successful in this country, you have to move faster than everyone else and create special experiences,” says Yuzvik.

The couple got their hospitality start in their hometown of Ternopil, Ukraine, with Karma Coffee cafes and later opened Soloway Coffee Roastery there. (Further evidence of their mutual love for coffee can be found in their wedding bands, which are decorated with tiny coffee beans.) They moved to Chicago in 2023.

Their two Karma cafes in Ukraine are still open but it’s getting harder every day, says Artur Yuzvik, to the point where it’s difficult to even call them a business. “If you talk about Ukraine in general, it’s not doing well because Ukrainians are fighting for their lives.” The roastery, fortunately, is doing well, with some 700 clients.

Next up for the couple is a second Soloway in Bucktown. Details were limited on the project, which is scheduled to open in a few weeks, but Yuzvik says to expect something different from its first location. Also in the works for next year is an expansion of their wholesale pastry program.

“It looks like we are getting used to the war and it breaks my heart because it feels like Ukraine is not a topic of discussion anymore in the world,” he says. “If I can say something to American people, it would be to support Ukraine as much as you can because if we fall down, Europe is next.”

The Semenivs are also anticipating a second location of Kazka in the suburbs, possibly in the next year. However, living through the invasion has made Roman Semeniv think differently about planning for the future.

“After opening a new restaurant in Ukraine three weeks before the war, I don’t have a long-term plan anymore because I had long-term plans two years ago and moving to the United States wasn’t in those,” he says. “We’re trying to focus on the short-term period, because the lessons that life taught me is to be ready for everything.”