Following the death of culinary powerhouse Dennis Retzleff, Annie Duncan and Adam Shoemaker are preserving his legacy as the new owners of Dennis Dean Catering.
The takeover by Duncan and Shoemaker, the company’s general manager and director of sales, respectively, had been in the works for several months prior to Retzleff’s death due to his worsening illness.
“Dennis was very private about his illness, understandably so, but a lot of people didn’t realize that for the past eight or nine months before he passed away, he wasn’t even in the office. We were running the show,” Duncan told Rough Draft. “Nobody saw any difference in anything that was happening around here. They didn’t see any difference in the quality of their events or anything like that, because it was very important to us that that didn’t happen.”
Duncan and Shoemaker plan to maintain this consistency and continue the business with Retzleff’s memory at the forefront with no changes to how the catering company is run. The two co-owners will maintain Retzleff’s philosophy of “never cutting corners” and prioritizing clients’ experience over profits.
“We’ll be keeping him in our minds and our hearts while we’re putting together events and designing events,” Shoemaker said.
“People keep asking if we’re going to change the business name. Absolutely not,” Duncan added.
However, the co-owners will be refreshing Dennis Dean with a rebrand and redesign of the website, two initiatives Retzleff wanted to implement before his death.
While the daily operations and high-quality events Dennis Dean Catering is known for will not change, Retzleff’s absence will be sorely missed.
“Obviously, the last month has been really sad,” Shoemaker said. “I think the hardest thing for all of us is wanting to talk to him about something. We both chatted with him all day, every day.”
“Operationally, nothing’s changed,” Duncan said. “It’s just been harder from the personal standpoint. He had a great sense of humor, he liked to laugh a lot, and not being able to share jokes and stuff with him has been really hard.”