Danny Childs spent years behind the bar at Cherry Hill's Farm & Fisherman Tavern, turning local ingredients into cocktails that won him a James Beard Award. Now the South Jersey resident has opened his first bar.

Field Day, at 923 N. Second St. in Philadelphia's Northern Liberties neighborhood, opened the week of Oct. 19, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Childs owns the bar with his wife, Katie.

The bar is built around Childs' "Slow Drinks" approach, which emphasizes seasonality, local sourcing, preservation and storytelling in cocktail-making. He first developed the concept at Farm & Fisherman Tavern, a family-friendly restaurant in a Cherry Hill strip mall, where he started in 2013, the Inquirer reported.

At Farm & Fisherman, Childs began crafting what he called "cocktails through an anthropological lens," applying fermentation and infusion techniques to local ingredients. One Inquirer article described his tenure there as spanning nine years; a separate profile said he worked there "over a decade." He left the role in 2023 to pursue Slow Drinks full time.

His 2023 book, also called Slow Drinks, has sold 14,000 copies in English and about 4,000 in Italian. It was recently translated to Mandarin.

A South Jersey garden feeds the menu

A third-of-an-acre garden at Childs' Pennsauken home generates more than 100 species of fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers each year, the Inquirer profile reported. The mix ranges from lavender and tomatoes to pawpaws, yuzu, prickly pear cactus and wormwood.

Those ingredients have appeared in drinks at bars in Philadelphia, Chicago, Berlin, Mexico City and other cities, according to the Inquirer.

Field Day's menu nods to the region

Field Day's food and drink menus highlight ingredients and traditions stretching from Appalachia and Lancaster County to South Jersey's farmlands and the Chesapeake Bay. The bar offers 36 cocktails in its main "Field Guide" menu, plus a streamlined "$15 Holler" list of nine drinks aimed at walk-in neighbors.

The 50-seat dining room is led by James Beard-nominated chef Melissa McGrath, known for her South Jersey seafood work. Fermentation specialist Jamaar Julal handles projects including miso made from stale tomato pie and fermented syrups from foraged fruits. The bar has 25 employees.

Childs and Katie Childs, who live in Pennsauken with their two young children, also built in a robust nonalcoholic drink lineup and a kids' menu with a botanical coloring page.

Roots in South Jersey

Childs grew up in Delaware County before moving to Marlton at age 11. His father bartended at the Clifton Inn in Clifton Heights for years. Childs studied anthropology and ethnobotany at the University of Delaware and spent four years in South America studying medicinal plants among Indigenous communities.

Before landing at Farm & Fisherman, he worked on a Marlton Christmas tree farm, where he and Katie lived in a military tent with a wood-burning stove for nine months.

Since leaving Farm & Fisherman, Childs has consulted on beverage programs at Philadelphia bars Almanac and La Jefa, both James Beard Award nominees, according to the Inquirer. He has also partnered with the international organization Slow Food to present on his approach in cities abroad.

Field Day is open 4 p.m. to midnight Wednesday through Saturday and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. Reservations are available on Resy.