Open That Bottle with Christina Mah

Born and raised in Calgary, Christina Mah always dreamt of opening a restaurant. “I knew I would choose a career path that would end up with saving money to open a restaurant or a bar, or something in the hospitality industry. And then somewhere along the way, I started working in the industry,” says Mah. And at a young age, she set out on a path that would ultimately lead to just that. 

A job opening at Raw Bar in Hotel Arts piqued Mah’s interest. “There was a hotel that was about to open, and they suggested that I come work there. But you need experience, right?” laughs Mah. “I went for an interview with no experience to do this job whatsoever. But I knew somebody there, so I kind of had an in, and maybe they saw something in me.”  

Mah is the first to admit that she wasn’t particularly strong in her new hostess role. Despite her drive and passion to work in the hospitality industry, part of her knew she could thrive in a different position. “I had been hosting for months, so I begged to become a bartender, but at that time there weren’t a lot of female bartenders. Not only that, I didn’t realize that the bartenders there were some of the best in Canada, and maybe even around the world. But it’s about experience, right? So the way I got into bartending was we were short one night for a function, someone had called in sick. There was nobody else, so I had to bartend. They had no other choice. So I got on the bar and I was able to show that I could do it,” she says. 

But Mah says she couldn’t have done it alone. “I had no idea who Graham Warner (founder of Raw Bar) and Franz Swinton (currently SAIT Hospitality and Tourism Management instructor) were, at the time they were like my older brothers at work who were just giving me a hard time. When you work with people who are as inspired as you are and have the same vision, you keep bringing new ideas to the table. And part of you wants to outdo each other too; you just get better and better. So we did that for years,” says Mah. 

As time went on, Mah honed her skills behind the bar and eventually moved into management, propelling her career in the restaurant industry forward, and opening doors to help build bar programs for some of Calgary’s most well-known restaurants, like Charcut and NOtaBLE. 

And after years of dedication and growth, Mah finally achieved her dream of opening a restaurant. “My partner James was presented an opportunity with the owners of Home Tasting Room, and fast forward – we opened Klein/Harris in 2016, and that was in the middle of a recession. I thought nothing would ever be as hard as that. And then 2019 came rolling around and I ate my words,” she laughs. 

Now, ten years later, Mah says time has flown by faster than she ever could have imagined. Yet, her bottle of Comte a de Dampierre Champagne still remains unopened after all these years. A gift from her best friend’s parents on the restaurant’s opening night, Mah says it’s simply been too special to open. “It felt like all my accomplishments had come to this very moment in 2016, on April 1st, when we opened. Everybody was there and it was overwhelming. All your friends, all your family, and it’s like a mile a minute. So I waited.”  

But this might be the year. After all, it’s hard to imagine a better reason to celebrate than ten successful years in business. “So we’re just thinking about what that looks like. How did we get here? How did all these people help shape where we are – our friends, our family, our customers, our suppliers? We would be nowhere without them,” she says. “And then we have staff who have been with us since 2016, it’s really heartwarming, you know, because the industry isn’t something people usually stay in for a long time.” But clearly Klein/ Harris is different, and definitely worth opening that bottle for.