People of NKY: Renee Schuler loved food, cooking, entertaining, so psychology degree led to catering

By Ginger Dawson
NKyTribune reporter

Renee Schuler has always liked people. And it’s not that she is just a people person, it’s that she is singularly interested in the psychology of people.  What makes them tick?

Renee Schuler in front of some of her new ranges and ovens. (Photo by Ginger Dawson)

After growing up in Lakeside Park in Northern Kentucky, she attended high school at Summit Country Day in Cincinnati. It was the continuation of a complete Catholic education. Upon graduation, she took advantage of this new horizon in her life to take a path that would be a little different.

College would be at DePauw University, a Methodist-affiliated institution located in Greencastle, Indiana. She liked the campus, the location, and its set of values. Several of these stated core and relational values would prove to be important to her—collaboration, curiosity, integrity, and a commitment to excellence.

This would be where she would begin to learn about people. She pursued a degree in psychology, the study of human inner workings, and paired it with a minor in theatre, the outward expression of those complex thoughts and emotions.

She loved the college life, the campus, and academia.  During those years, she also spent a semester in a co-op program in New York City, working with people involved in the theatre. This proved to be a real eye-opener with unforeseen consequences for her future plans.

I can tell you, if people fascinate you, there is no other place like New York City.

Graduation day from the Institute of Culinary Education in April of 1997. With friend Susan Powell. (Photo provided)

Graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology, with the minor in theatre, it was time to consider pursuing advanced study. After all, she had this degree and she loved college life. It was what she thought she ought to do.  But, she also realized that it would take SEVEN more years to attain the level of education that she felt she would need.

She sat down to fill out the appropriate applications and paperwork for this step forward, and discovered something — she couldn’t finish filling out the forms. She could not do it!

She thought to herself, “If I can’t even muster the willpower to fill out this paperwork, what makes me think I can stay the course for seven more years!”  She took this to be a sign.

Her plans changed. The subconscious to the rescue!

Renee had always loved food, cooking and entertaining. She’d had a catering job (on the serving end), and she had helped her parents entertain. She started thinking about this as a possible career path.

The new home of eat well celebrations and feasts on York St. in Newport. (Photo by Ginger Dawson)

And, the lure of New York City came in to play. She made a plan. She would move to New York City when the first of two things happened — she would have a job or a place to live.

A college friend, who had previously moved to Brooklyn, let Renee know that she needed a roommate. Perfect.

Renee moved to Brooklyn and her culinary career began. She got work serving for catering businesses and continued considering different possibilities.

Through her explorations, she discovered the career of being a food stylist and thought that that sounded like a lot of fun. She sought out advice from people in the profession, and their recommendation was that she needed to go to culinary school. It was a necessary requirement for success. She selected the Institute of Culinary Education located in lower Manhattan.

She completed this course work, and from there on, she had great jobs and worked with a lot of great people in all aspects of the food world.

This gorgeous new kitchen is getting ready to go. (Photo by Ginger Dawson)

Renee loved her career and NYC, but she also missed being around her family. She regularly traveled home to visit.

One day at work, while searching for something in one of the walk-in refrigerators at the place she was working, she discovered fresh produce from a farm in Huron, Ohio. She had an epiphany.

She said to herself, “Why do I have to be in NYC?  Why couldn’t I be closer to home in Ohio, as well as the source of all of this great food?”  

In what became one of the luckier decisions in timing to relocate, Renee moved from New York City in 2000.

With her Manhattan resume, she quickly got into the swing of things and shortly landed a job at The Murphin Ridge Inn, a bed and breakfast located in Adams County. She was executive chef. She worked there for three years and toward the end of her tenure there, collaborated with the owner of the Inn, Sherry McKenney, on a cookbook — A Taste of the Murphin Ridge Inn.

Salads for an intimate evening dinner with Carmon Deleone for the Cincinnati Ballet in October of 2018. (Photo provided.)

Renee is entrepreneurial by nature, and she has worked alongside the best (perhaps you’re heard of Bobby Flay?) in New York, as well as locally.  She parlayed all of these valuable experiences into an idea. In 2005, Chef Renee Schuler founded eat well celebrations and feasts.

As her business philosophy is to truly eat well, she delivers on this by guaranteeing four seamless elements:  the best ingredients, expertly crafted dishes, exceptional service—all delivered in a memorable presentation.

The business has been enormously successful, and she has drawn, not only on her food experience for this success but also on her psychology degree fueled by that innate interest in people.

Utilizing the Enneagram of Personality, the study of interconnected personality types, she has learned to understand, not only her own strengths and weaknesses, but also the people she employs. This aids in interpersonal workplace relationships and helps foster successful harmony behind the scenes. Customers are not only happy, but her staff is as well.  And it is a large staff to keep happy — over 20 full-time employees and a part-time serving staff that numbers eighty!

Business continued to build, and it was time for Renee to take the next step.  In April of 2019, she purchased the Bernhard Bakery building in Newport.

It is an enormous building. Renovation and construction started a few months later and has progressed.

Moving into the new place is underway, complete with hand sanitizer. (Photo by Ginger Dawson)

And then, as we are all acutely aware, COVID-19 happened.  

It has affected Renee as it has everyone else.

Past experiences, a serious work ethic, a willingness to think creatively and a commitment to staff has galvanized Renee to evolve her business. She already has several ideas for moving forward in the new space, and, no doubt, her plan will continue to fine-tune to circumstance.

Her favorite quote is particularly apt and was right on the tip of her tongue.

Teddy Roosevelt, a man to conquer adversity if ever there was one, rendered this judgment, and I paraphrase:  “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…who strives valiantly; who errs; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

Renee Schuler has always been in the arena and striving toward achievement is a part of her. As she well knows, it’s the psychology of the thing!

Ginger Dawson writes about people — the neighbors you need to know and people you need to meet and understand. If you have ideas for subjects please share them with Ginger at ginger@fuse.net.