Conversations with Suki Skye

Today we’d like to introduce you to Suki Skye.

Hi Suki, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Our path to DACHA began long before there was ever a restaurant. Katya escaped Russia in 2014, after the government began persecuting LGBTQ+ individuals and she knew it was no longer safe to stay. She moved halfway around the world, leaving behind everything she ever knew for the opportunity to create the life she truly wanted in a place she had only really imagined through TV and music. She traveled the United States for several months and eventually stayed in San Francisco for it’s open culture, gorgeous city, and proximity to nature. Katya soon discovered that she loved the hospitality industry, and worked in several bars and restaurants in both SF and New York City before becoming an owner herself.

I (Suki) discovered the awesomeness of San Francisco after visiting with my family when I was 13 years old. Seven years later, I came to the Bay Area from Maryland to envelop myself in the creative energy and proximity to nature. I eventually finished my double majors in art history and marketing at San Diego State University, then moved around a few times and even back to Maryland before revisiting San Francisco in 2015. I started my career in events management and communications for art museums and other creative start-ups, eventually specializing in internal communications for several different organizations including the National Park Service for 13 years. When we opened the restaurant in 2023, I worked for the Federal Government by day and at DACHA by night for almost two years before making the leap into full time business ownership.

Katya and I met in early 2019 at an Interstellar-themed techno party that Katya organized, and have been on a shared creative journey since then. Later that same year we founded Manhattan Zodiac, a cocktail catering and mixology company built around our shared belief that hospitality could be personal and deeply intentional. What began with private events and cocktail classes gradually grew into a loyal community of clients, collaborators, and friends—and with it came the desire for a permanent home.

Around the Fall of 2020, we started hunting for a bar space to call our own. Over the course of three years we saw many of the either tragic or wildly-overpriced spaces up close and personal. In January of 2023, what eventually became DACHA Kitchen and Bar came on the market and hallelujah, the bathrooms were pristine! Those beautiful bathrooms, along with the gorgeous original brick walls and friendly ghosts, convinced us that this was our space. Although we had no designs of opening a restaurant in one of the most competitive and expensive cities in the world, we just knew we had to take this risk and give it our all or we would regret the missed opportunity. We scraped together nearly every penny we had and opened on November 1, 2023.

We imagined a place where the people we had met through Manhattan Zodiac could return again and again, not just for an event, but to eat, drink, gather, and feel part of something. Inspired by the Eastern European tradition of the dacha – a second home where people retreat from everyday life to gather around food, family, and friends – Katya and I set out to reinterpret that feeling for modern San Francisco. Today, DACHA pairs modern Eastern European cuisine with seasonal California ingredients, inventive cocktails, music, cultural programming, community collaborations, and regular fundraising efforts. Along with several other small businesses in our neighborhood, we are bringing the queer spirit to this once-thriving queer epicenter of San Francisco (this was the queer neighborhood before the Castro became what it is today!).

As queer women, we have also been intentional about creating the kind of hospitality space that we wanted to find: warm and sophisticated, but never exclusionary; a place where guests and staff alike can feel safe, respected, and genuinely welcome. What began as a cocktail company and grew into a restaurant is continuing to evolve into something larger—a hospitality project centered on culture, creativity, connection, and the simple but increasingly meaningful experience of belonging.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Our entrepreneurial journey has been an interesting one, full of potholes and bright spots.. One such pothole was finding the realtor who scouts properties for us to this day–and generally the process of finding the support team needed to be functional: realtor, attorney, accountant, psychologist, and mentors. Our initial realtor asked us to introduce us to our investor and show where ‘his’ money is coming from…to which we politely declined his services and found our current amazing realtor who fully believed in us despite having much track record at that point. We’ve been quite lucky to find several people who have supported our vision fully, despite not having a long track record or millions of dollars in our bank account.

Another such pothole was opening and then quickly walking away from a bar in downtown San Francisco. Before we ever knew that DACHA was on the horizon, we actually opened another bar in partnership with several other industry veterans. We put our whole hearts into that project for nearly a year, only to have one of the ‘silent’ partners be not silent AT ALL. We’re pretty certain that being led and managed by a lesbian from Russia was quite upsetting for his ego. This ‘silent’ partner showed his true colors on the opening night when he told our DJ friends to change the music type/style that we had very carefully curated…I am happy to provide more details on this experience if needed but would prefer to keep the bar name anonymous if possible 🙂

On this path we also opened and closed a cafe, DACHA Cafe and Bar, in early 2023 while we were in the process of opening DACHA Kitchen and Bar. This all started after we did a cocktail catering gig at a co-working space in May of 2023, and they asked whether we wanted to reopen the existing cafe which had been standing closed since about 2019. This was also an interesting part of our journey which I can share more about if needed!

For the restaurant, we’ve learned SO much over the last three years! While we have run over MANY potholes along the way, we view these as learning opportunities and really took each setback to heart and were able to apply some knowledge from each one as we continued to move forward. This mindset of learning from our mistakes and from what life throws at us in general is somewhat innate to both Katya and myself, but it’s also something that we picked up from reading several books including Ray Dalio’s ‘Principles’, Will Guidara’s ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’, and Danny Meyer’s ‘Setting the Table’ (among many others!). We also have several amazing mentors who told us early on to expect setbacks, and this has generally helped us to have the mindset that we will get through whatever comes our way.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My background has always lived at the intersection of creativity, communication, and business. I hold two bachelor’s degrees, in Art History and Marketing, as well as a master’s degree in Communications. Over the years, I’ve worked for several art museums, creative start-ups, and eventually in the federal government for the National Park Service, where I was able to bring much of that experience in communications, strategy, and creative thinking into a very different environment. My career hasn’t followed a particularly straight line, but looking back, there is a clear thread running through all of it: I’ve always been interested in how ideas, aesthetics, and storytelling can shape the way people experience the world around them.

Creativity has also been part of my life outside of work for as long as I can remember. I have a history of making art and jewelry, and music runs deeply through my family (my mom is a professional Celtic harpist!). One of the unexpected joys of creating DACHA has been rediscovering those parts of myself and realizing how many different forms creativity can take. I designed DACHA’s concept and interior myself, and the restaurant has become an enormous creative canvas for me—from the physical environment and visual identity to events, music, branding, cocktails, food, photography, and the stories we tell. I love creating an atmosphere and thinking about all the small details that influence how someone feels when they enter a space.

I’m particularly proud of producing our annual Queer Prom event, which invites our community to join us in a peaceful, beautiful environment in celebration of our queerness. Through that event and others we’ve made some amazing friends, including the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who honored us by declaring our space a ‘sacred sanctuary’ and Katya and myself as honorary Sisters. You can see images of our 2026 Queer Prom in the photos we submitted!

Making the leap from a federal career into full-time business ownership was a significant change, but it has also brought together parts of my life that previously existed separately. The strategic and marketing side of my background is now constantly in conversation with the artist in me. I’m learning an entirely new industry, building a business, solving problems every day, and at the same time finding new ways to make things and express myself. I think that combination is probably what I’m most proud of – not simply that we opened a restaurant, but that I gave myself permission to take a very different path and discover what I could build with everything I had learned along the way.

What sets my work apart is that I don’t really see a hard boundary between business and creativity. Whether I’m designing a room, developing a brand, producing an event, thinking through a marketing strategy, or imagining what DACHA could become next, I approach it as both a creative and strategic problem. For me, business ownership has become another artistic medium – one that happens to involve people, spaces, food, music, culture, and community. I’m still discovering what that means, which may be the most exciting part.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
We are always looking for new collaborations, especially with people and organizations doing interesting, creative, or community-centered work. One exciting part of our business is our sister company, Manhattan Zodiac, which focuses on mixology education and thoughtful hospitality consulting. Through our consulting work, we’ve developed beverage programs, built bars from the ground up, helped hire and train teams, and worked with owners to think more holistically about how their bar, food, service, and overall concept fit together. Right now, we’re working with a lesbian-owned bar in Los Angeles to help build out their bar program and space, hire and train their team, and create the operational infrastructure for managing a diverse and inclusive workplace.

Some of my favorite collaborations, though, have been the ones where creativity and community intersect. We love bringing other chefs, artists, DJs, makers, and hospitality professionals into what we do. During Women’s History Month in 2024, for example, we collaborated with two women chefs to feature their dishes on the DACHA menu, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting a women-focused nonprofit. We’ve also hosted collaborative dinners, cultural events, music programming, and fundraisers, and we’re always interested in finding unexpected ways to share our platform with other creative people.

Giving back is one of the core pillars of our businesses. Over the years, we’ve raised and donated thousands of dollars for nonprofits and causes that are deeply important to us, and we want that work to continue growing alongside the business. We’re especially excited to connect with people who have ideas for creative partnerships that can amplify those efforts—whether that means a collaborative event, a guest chef or artist, a fundraising campaign, or something we haven’t thought of yet.

And, of course, one of the simplest ways to support us is to come experience what we’re creating. Visit DACHA, bring someone new, book us for an event, take a Manhattan Zodiac class, tell your friends about us, or simply come say hello. Independent businesses really are built through relationships, and so many of the most interesting things we’ve done have begun with someone walking through the door and saying, “I have an idea.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dachaprojects.com
• Instagram: @dachaonsutter
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dacha-kitchen-bar/

Image Credits
Emily Billings, Cabure Bonugli