Kevin Jateff

Project Sunday started in 2011 as a group of tinkerers in a borrowed shop amongst Salt Lake City’s buzzing college ski town atmosphere. Since then they’ve grown into one of the most versatile and sought-after design-build firms in the state of Utah, housed in a 4,000 square foot production shop on the south side of the city. Their repertoire ranges from large commercial projects for companies like Adobe, Park City Mountain Resort and Campos Coffee, to a slew of local restaurant builds like the Riverhorse Cafe in Park City and Brass Smoothies in Salt Lake City. 

The firm’s owner, Kevin Jateff, reminisces how in 2012, childhood friend, Jordan Omohundro convinced him to move from St. Louis to SLC to help him get their start as the company finance guy. “Jordan had already gotten a friend base and had this cool community of people who were starting their own businesses and retail stores. He was building their host stands, reception desks and benches and carving out this thing for what would eventually become Project Sunday. On Sunday this city is a dead zone so that’s the day these guys would go out and try to find cool stuff around buildings like reclaimed wood and metal pipes. That was Project Sunday,” says Jateff. 

At the time, the firm consisted of Jateff, Omohundro, and friends Greg Frehr and Ben Hanisch. With the combined work of these four craftsmen the firm quickly gained popularity among the local community. “I think part of why word got out so quickly is because of how social we all were,” says Jateff, “We were at every bar four nights a week if not more. We were just constantly getting jobs that way. Greg, Jordan and I were sharing the same bank account. We were tied together like the Three Stooges man, it was out of control.” 

Acquiring reclaimed materials lent to an industrial-chic style that was as charismatic as the boys themselves, and soon the firm was churning out an entire arsenal of restaurant booths, bar stools, bed frames, floor lamps and marquee signs for clients across the Wasatch Front. “Jordan was such a freak as far as skill with physical ability, design and the curiosity of trying to learn any new thing. I was playing catch up and he was doing so many of the facets of the business. Ben came up with the logo and the fonts and the way the brand looked and I was supposed to be handling all the details of the grunt work. It was grinding.” 

Since that time, the firm has had many employees and interns work to build their portfolio until its current iteration with Matt Smith as Project Lead, Chance Hutchison as Fabricator and Riley Ridd as the in-house designer and marketing/social media who is heavily responsible for the style seen from Project Sunday for the past 6 years. “When it comes to design, I get kind of flustered by it, so we have a designer on staff so as not to have the builders design or the administrator do the design, we have a designer for that,” says Jateff, “When you have more cogs it takes longer for the thing to happen, but does it happen better? In my experience it does. If you only have one cog and you overload it and it spins too fast, it could come off the rails.” 

While Jateff enjoys making things, his role as administrator is where he derives the most enjoyment and is what he believes provides the most value to the company. “This work is extremely mentally challenging, let alone the physical aspects. If your head is in fractions cutting wood, but you now have to think about how to value your skill set by coming up with a bid, you’re very likely to underestimate just to get that next project on the books,” says Jateff, “I’ve been teased before by other builders asking me to do all the administrative and customer communication for them so they can focus simply on what they love, building things.” 

Custom commissioned furniture is a much longer and more expensive experience than buying pre-made pieces from a store or online, but Jateff seems to have the experience down to a science. “I just give everybody the news up front, it’s going to be expensive and it’s going to be long, but you’re going to get your ear talked off by me. I’m going to walk you through every step of the process and it’s going to come out and your mind is going to be blown. You’re paying a lot of money so you’re going to get what you pay for.”