It may come as no surprise that Hans Schuler grew up in the business. Like his father, he worked in the restaurant at an early age. Family lore has it that, when Hans was 3 years old, he was asked to carry the restaurant’s money sack, but dropped it on the way to the bank. (Someone found it and came running into the bank with it.) That early miscue notwithstanding, Hans was born to be an entrepreneur. As a young man, he was assigned responsibilities that would provide an in-depth understanding of what it means to run a successful restaurant. Like all Schuler family members, he started on the dish machine, affectionately christened “the China Clipper.” When he was 12 years old, he was shucking shrimp. At 15, he was working in the restaurant’s butcher shop, and often ran the broiler and cooked. Later, he managed the restaurant commissary and plant operation. “Essentially, I worked every job in place,” says Hans. “I doubled as a host when needed.”

Hans originally attended Cornell University, but transferred to Michigan State, where he received his degree in hotel, restaurant, and institutional management. Upon his graduation, he was ready to assume a more active role in the family business and to assist in running the Marshall operations. Named president of the company in 1970, he was increasingly responsible for major expansions, ongoing renovations, and supervising the business decisions that would take Schuler’s into the 21st Century. Chief among these were the sale of the Bar-Scheeze food division to Campbell’s Soup in 1982 and the decision to concentrate the corporation’s efforts in the flagship restaurant—where it all started.

Along the way, he found time to be a quiet contributor to the local and regional community where he lives and works. Starting locally by serving on the Chamber Board (and being recognized as Marshall Young Man of the Year), he eventually expanded his focus to the state, where he served as Chairman of Michigan Week for the Greater Michigan Foundation and chaired the Governor’s Annual Conference on Tourism. He has been a member of the AAA Michigan’s Board of Directors since 1978, and was the group’s chairman in 1989 and 1990. Service on many civic community boards demonstrates his interest in “giving back” to the state and region that have supported the restaurant through the years.

When he saw that the bar was no longer producing much in the way of business for the restaurant, Hans Schuler introduced the pub concept in the early 1980s. When others might have basked in the reputation and success of the flagship restaurant, he saw an opportunity in the changing eating habits of the public. Reasoning that many people would come in to get “an exceptional hamburg and a mug of beer,” Hans set about to create a “second restaurant” adjacent to the existing Centennial Room. A grill was put in, and Hans aggressively went after the local customers who might use the pub as a meeting place or for a more casual meal. Win Schuler had his doubts. “What, are you going to have another McDonalds here?” he asked Hans. The Pub would prove to be a popular mid-week gathering place.

When supervising the various restaurants and maintaining the quality associated with the Schuler name became more of a challenge in the 1980s, the decision was made to concentrate on the flagship restaurant in Marshall, and to refocus the business. “In order to maintain the high quality for which Schuler’s is known, we felt that our resources would be better spent at the place where it all started,” says Hans Schuler. “With its longevity and reputation, it was important to me to keep Schuler’s in Marshall and to build on what we have there. We’ll continue to evolve and to reinvest in order to keep providing the experience our guests have come to expect.”