Meet Bob Szuter | Co-owner – Wolf’s Ridge Brewing

We had the good fortune of connecting with Bob Szuter and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Bob, what habits do you feel helped you succeed?
As many business owners will tell you, there’s so much learning and growth that happens when starting and operating a business. For a lot of us, we don’t start with the important leadership abilities. One of the first things I learned along the way was the importance of giving my team the authority and responsibility to make decisions. Not only did this boost their confidence but also allowed for me to continue to make steps out of the day-to-day and focus on the overall business. In-line with empowering staff was the delegation and recognizing that I can’t do everything myself and, more importantly, that I don’t need to know how to do everything. I can and should ask my team for help.

Another habit that has been crucial to our success was the emphasis on often trying new things. It’s somewhat inherent in our business but easy to stick with what’s working. In industries where there are constant newcomers it’s so important to make sure you’re spending time on innovation. Looking at what you do and how it can be done differently. Not only has this helped keep us ahead of the curve but has also helped and foster a culture of creativity.

Along the lines of culture, we have found that as you grow and the owners get further away from the daily operations it’s really important to develop an intentional culture. Specifically, identifying the specific values you want your team to work by make sure you hire and reward based on those values. Most importantly, it’s got to start with the leadership.

To that end, I’ve developed a habit of constantly working on my leadership skills. This is work that never ends but is also extremely rewarding. Having a better understanding of how I show up with my team and the influence you can have on others has enabled me to guide my team more effectively. Leadership isn’t just about giving orders; it’s about inspiring and motivating others which can be different for everyone. Understanding that and then doing the work to put it into practice is so important.

Finally, monitoring the business through financials is one of the most helpful tools to seeing where you may need to give special attention. When things are good, it’s easy to overlook certain areas of the business that may need serious help. By finding out the base KPIs you should be looking at you can ensure you’ve got at least a high level idea of what areas of your business are operating well and what areas need assistance.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We started as a single location restaurant and brewpub operating roughly 5000 square feet. We expanded in our initial location to fully occupy 17000 square feet with the restaurant, taproom, and private events space (in addition to a brewery). We expanded and added a 20k SF production facility and a second 10k SF brewery. Having grown from 30 employees to 130 and then down to 100 we have experienced a lot of change. Innovation is key to what sets us apart. We are constantly focused on new ideas and techniques through food, beer, and cocktails. What excites me the most is when our teams are excited about new ideas. We work hard to maintain a culture that allows for trying new things and being ok with them not working out.

I’d like the world to know that what makes us and other small business important is that communities in which we operate are extremely important to us. We live here, our employees live here. The success of the community is our success.

Getting to where we are felt easy until it wasn’t. Leading up to the pandemic there was growth everywhere. Since then, it’s felt like there’s always something that needs work. It’s forced us to face realities in certain areas of the business and has pushed to do things we hadn’t done before. I’ve learned that it’s important to consider the future and look at what you may need to do know to best prepare for what that future looks like. For example, when we found we were losing a lot of money in a certain area of the business, we knew we couldn’t ignore it and had to make some difficult decisions. Talking to our team about what that might look like, getting their feedback, and then moving forward with a plan is really important. Someone put it to me recently as “taking the risk out of the business.” What can you do today to take risk out of the future?

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
My family leads a pretty busy life and when we do have down time we try to spend it lowkey at home. That being said, I would recommend a bike around the city. I’d take the Olentangy River Trail to Understory (one of our locations) and sit on the patio for brunch and a beer. Take that back to Franklinton for a coffee at One Line (amazing roaster we use for the coffee in our GABF and World Beer cup award winning beer, Daybreak). I’d then suggest heading to COSI or the Veterans Memorial. Then I’d take a pick of either catching a concert in the Commons downtown, a Crew game, or a Blue Jackets game. The atmosphere at the Crew stadium is amazing and shows the best of Columbus. Finally, to cap it off, I’d stroll late night through the Book Loft in German Village. Dozens of rooms of books in a really cool building.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Support from a community is so important to our success. First and foremost is the amazing support locally for small and independent businesses. We have great customers. Closer to home, my wife has been a constant source of both emotional and financial support for me and my family as we’ve navigated 11 years in business. Also, being able to partner with my parents on our business is something that has been so important. Trust and values matter when running a small business so having that with them is amazing. Finally, we’ve spent a few years working with a group nearby in Dayton, OH called Aileron. They focus on developing leadership abilities among other things and have been tremendously important from both a business and personal perspective. I’ve learned and have grown so much in the past 11 years and all of these people are key to that.

Website: https://www.wolfsridgebrewing.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/wolfsridgebrewing

Facebook: https://facebook.com/wolfsridgebrew

Yelp: https://yelp.com/biz/wolfs-ridge-brewing-columbus

Other: www.understorycbus.com
instagram.com/understorycbus
facebook.com/understorycbus
yelp.com/biz/understory-columbus-2

Image Credits
Wolf’s Ridge Brewing