Kris Harvey

The Path

Kris Harvey’s story begins in downtown Edmonton, where the rhythm of the city seems to have shaped the pace of his own ambition. Long before he became known for building places meant to gather people, he was already working the room from behind the scenes—first as a DJ and gig promoter in Edmonton, helping set the tone for nights that lived and died by atmosphere, timing, and instinct. It was a formative kind of work: part curator, part connector, part quiet architect of energy. The momentum, once it began, did not stop there. In 2015, Harvey opened a 200-person restaurant and art bar, the chvrch of john at The Chvrch of John in Basement of the Grand Hotel, Edmonton, a project that distilled his interest in hospitality, culture, and community into one singular address. The name itself carried a certain charge, but the idea behind it was even more immediate: a place with enough warmth, scale, and personality to hold a crowd without losing its sense of intimacy. Years later, that same curiosity and hands-on approach carried him beyond Edmonton, and in 2022–2022 he taught a master class at Tomric Innovation Center in Buffalo, NY, extending his experience into a teaching role and sharing what he had learned along the way.

The Work Today

That guiding idea still sits at the center of Harvey’s work today. It is less a slogan than a lens—one that turns hospitality into a social act, and a venue into a kind of common ground. The thread running through his career is easy to trace: an attention to how people move, gather, linger, and return. From the pulse of his early days as a dj and gig promoter in Edmonton to the more ambitious scale of the 200-person restaurant and art bar, the chvrch of john at The Chvrch of John in Basement of the Grand Hotel, Edmonton, Harvey has consistently been drawn to spaces that feel alive because people are in them together. Even the language he uses is plain-spoken and practical, but the effect is larger than that. He is interested in making room for occasions, for conversation, for the small social electricity that turns a night out into a memory. That sensibility also informs the way he speaks about timing and momentum: not waiting for the perfect moment, but shaping one.

In Their Words “I’ve lived in downtown Edmonton for the majority of my life and I wanted to build something that will bring people together.” “I didn’t want to wait for the arena.”