Meet Bob Szuter of Wolf’s Ridge Brewing, Understory, Wolf’s Ridge at Worthington Inn

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bob Szuter.

Hi Bob, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
In 2012, my dad, Alan, and I quit our jobs after preparing our business plan for Wolf’s Ridge Brewing. We spent the next 10 months building out our downtown location before opening in late September 2013. Initially, we opened with a restaurant and small brewery. We quickly expanded both the physical space in that building adding a Taproom, a private events space, and the production capabilities of the brewery with additional fermenters. In 2019, we expanded the production space further by taking over an established production facility in the west side of Columbus. In 2021 we added our second retail location, Understory, in Old North Columbus in the amazing Open Air School. With a rich history and beautiful setting it has been a tremendous project for us. Recently, in spring 2026, we added our third retail location, Wolf’s Ridge at Worthington Inn. This space has an even deeper history and is an important part of of the central-Ohio community. Super excited to be a part of it!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Any small business will attest that it’s never smooth sailing. We are a 100% family owned small business with limited resources so every day brings about unique challenges, particularly as we try to grow. I often say I’ve learned more in the last 13 years than in my entire life prior. Somewhat tongue in cheek but it has been an amazing ride so far. Some of the challenges have been adapting during the pandemic and the consumer adjustments to eating and drinking that have followed. That said, culture is really important for us and we work hard to take care of our team and build sustainable employment. What we’ve been able to grow is a testament to the hard work of all the amazing people we’ve the opportunity to work with.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Wolf’s Ridge Brewing, Understory, Wolf’s Ridge at Worthington Inn?
We take craft seriously. We strive to build a premier guest experience in food and beverage, centered around craft. Particularly craft beer. Beer isn’t just a beverage to us, it’s the confluence of history, art, science, culture and community. Beer is food and the craft we put into our beer is shared with our chefs in the dishes and menus at our restaurants. We aggressively source ingredients to share not only our craft but the craft of all the great suppliers we partner with. Our brewery is known for a series of innovative cream ales, that are infused with not only coffee from our local partner One Line Coffee but also with culinary ingredients from around the world.

Wolf’s Ridge prides itself on honoring the history and tradition of foods and beverages while still innovating and taking risks with new flavors, dishes or beer styles. Our best selling beer is Daybreak Coffee Vanilla Cream Ale, we might be the only brewery with which that is the case but we tried a new style, listened to our customers and continued to innovate. Not every beer we craft meets our intentions, we brewed a Lepzig style Gose that didn’t meet the lofty heights to which we aspire, but understand that failure can be a stepping stone to success and innovation is an iterative process. We are serving English style pub ale on our traditional beer engine at our new location the Worthington Inn, to honor the heritage of the building, first built in 1831 and used for many years as an inn and pub for travelers.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Starting the business was a major risk. My parents had to leverage their house for us to get financing to start the business so they certainly took a significant financial risk.For me, I didn’t realize the extent to which I might be risking my opportunities in my personal life. So I carry both of those with me all the time. I look at what’s in front of me and ask whether it further jeopardizes either of those things or if it will help to reduce the risks. Additionally, I try to think far ahead and look at the worst case scenario. What does that look like and how uncomfortable would that be? We also try to further mitigate risk through diversification. The hospitality industry is inherently challenging and dynamic but within that there are things we can do to set up our business to more easily navigate the changes. Through trying to diversify what we do and how we do it we’ve been able to build something that has strong cash flow and good profitability.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wolfsridgebrewing.com | www.understorycbus.com | www.worthingtoninn.com
• Instagram: @wolfsridgebrewing, @wrbworthingtoninn, @understory_cbus