Ben Staley, the former chef at Yarrow and the Alder Room, says Next of Kin, his first concept as Hoot Company's creative director, is a neighbourhood bar in the Brewery District.
Next of Kin is located at 10425 121 Street NW, in the basement below Wilfred's and Made by Marcus in the brick former office building beside the former Molson brewery. Staley developed the menus for food and drink, but also designed the interior. Design is something he's prioritized learning about since leaving Yarrow and chef life in 2022. The restaurant closed mysteriously in 2024.
"I've always just loved pretty things," Staley told Taproot. "I think the physical environment is so important to how people feel, or how you want them to feel. (The opportunity to work on that was) what made me agree to take this job."
Staley joined Hoot in 2023 and has helped overhaul the bar menus at both Dorinku locations before designing Next of Kin from the ground up. Hoot also owns both Japonais Bistro and DOSC.
Staley's concept for Next of Kin is that there is not one concept. "With my past restaurants, when I was still cooking, they were so hyper-conceptual and so hyper-focused on this one thing, and we did that to the best that we possibly could," he said. "We didn't really want to pigeonhole ourselves into doing just one thing (with Next of Kin)."
Still, Staley said, the look of Next of Kin is inspired by the 1970s and feels like "your cool grandparents' basement." Menus current as of March 19 include dishes with flavours from Asia and the Mediterranean alongside a burger and soft-serve ice cream. For cocktails, which Staley said are the focus of the bar, inspiration runs from bubblegum and rhubarb to café au lait and Five Alive.
Staley said the forthcoming Nero, a restaurant in the former Molson Brewery building right next door to Next of Kin by the team behind Rosso and Bianco, might help lure customers to his cocktail bar before or after dinner.
Attracting more people to the Brewery District might be limited by its design, Lisa Brown, the former president of what's now called the Wîhkwêntôwin Community League and a resident of the neighbourhood, told Taproot. Brown said she hopes new businesses like Next of Kin and Nero can influence the future of the Brewery District, which she believes was "not very well done from an urban design, integration-into-the-community perspective" when it was opened nearly a decade ago.
"My naive, optimistic hope is that some of these business owners push the developer to improve the public realm so that the experience of their customers improves," Brown said. "I'm not holding my breath for that, but I think that would be nice to see."
Next of Kin by Ben Staley and Hoot Hospitality is part of the changing face of the Brewery District. Some community members hope these changes create a ripple effect in the criticized development. (Jay Walker)
Brown was part of the community of residents that challenged plans by developers First Capital Realty and Sun Life for the Brewery District before it opened in 2016. She said the development, which architect DIALOG has called pedestrian-oriented, lacks adequate sidewalks, crossings, and other access options for people who don't drive. There are blind spots for cyclists, especially around the large, underground parkade for cars, which she says do not even allow cyclists to enter.
Given the Brewery District offers ample, free, underground parking, Brown is puzzled by the amount of parking on the surface, which she said could be used for something else.
"It's not even necessarily that it has to be 'public realm,' in the sense that it's a park, but even just beautiful patios, great spaces for businesses to spill out and activate the space (would be better than surface parking)," she said. "That would actually help grow business, whereas, free surface parking … I can't imagine that it's as profitable as a restaurant having an extra 50 spaces in a beautiful area."
Staley, for his part, said part of the location's appeal for Next of Kin is that it is between fellow cocktail bar, Clementine, and Manchester Square off 124 Street NW. He agrees that there could be some improvements to the Brewery District, like more small, standalone businesses, but said the development has made strides, and he is optimistic about how the forthcoming Valley Line West LRT could open up access to Next of Kin for more people.
Though Staley built the menus for Next of Kin, he doesn't want them to become stagnant or be put into a box. He said he believes collaboration between chefs in Edmonton has dipped in recent years, and he wants to reinvigorate it with guests in the kitchen and behind the wood. The "Next" in Next of Kin, Staley said, means bringing in guest chefs and bartenders from Edmonton, Canada, or beyond. The first guest chef should arrive in late April or early May, he said.
"A big part of our concept is that we're doing this chef-in-residence program," Staley said. "We can have fun doing something with a chef, whether they do Indian, or Spanish, or French, or anything. The idea with that is that we're passing (our hospitality platform) down a little bit."
In the interim, and before the first chef takes residence at the bar, Staley is organizing a "bar crossover" at Next of Kin with James Grant of Toronto's Library Bar on April 18 and 19.
The establishment is open on evenings from Tuesday to Saturday for walk-ins only.
The Molson Brewery building in April 2016, just shy of nine years before Next of Kin opened in what's now called the Brewery District. (Mack Male/Flickr)