Culinary entrepreneur takes her show on the road
By Stacy Moser
Photography by Justin Borja
Katie Hermann has always known what her life’s pursuit would be. “I absolutely love to cook, no doubt about it,” she says emphatically. “What a blessing it’s been to know exactly what I wanted to do ever since I was really little.”
As the owner of two successful food-oriented businesses, Katie marvels at the journey that brought her here. It all started in her family’s kitchen—she grew up in a household where everyone was involved in preparing meals together. She attributes her love of all things culinary to the bond she felt with her parents and grandparents as they broke bread at the table.
Her penchant for sharing the joy of cooking started early and her parents encouraged their daughter’s budding entrepreneurship. She held cooking classes at home during the summers, enticing younger kids to join her in the kitchen, armed with her mom’s tasty recipes. At just 12 years old, she was featured in an article in the Temple Daily Telegram, accompanied by a photo of her serving fruit punch and appetizers on a tray. She grins at the camera, clearly proud of a dinner she has prepared for friends.
“My professional cooking career started at the Wildflower Country Club,” she recalls. “I was in high school here in Temple when they first opened, so I worked there on weekends. It was a great experience, but I learned that it’s a very male-dominated profession—there might’ve been one other female working in the kitchen. The guys told me over and over, ‘You’re never gonna make it. It’s too hard, it’s too physical, it’s too much work,’” she says. “But that lit my fire. When somebody tells me I can’t do something, that’s when I work harder,” she laughs. “That’s my personality.”
Katie dreamed of attending culinary school, setting her sights on New York’s Culinary Institute of America (CIA). She says her parents wisely steered her toward a bachelor’s degree before she focused solely on culinary school, so she attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, graduating with a degree in sociology, minoring in economics. Even during those years in college, though, her yearning to cook led her down an entrepreneurial path. She partnered with a friend to build a catering business in their spare time, cooking for professors’ dinner parties and fraternity events.
Soon after graduation, Katie packed her bags and headed to New York. “It was an amazing experience at the CIA,” she recalls. In typical fashion, Katie excelled in the program and was granted a presidential scholarship, reserved for the student with the highest grade-point average in the school.
“After going through the CIA’s two-year program, I stayed for a year afterward and did a fellowship in seafood cookery. I taught students fish fabrication and all kinds of good stuff. It went by so fast. I ended up doing very well and graduated first in my class. I think it’s because I truly loved what I was doing, and I wanted to get as much out of it as I possibly could.”
She met and later married a fellow CIA student, Dave Hermann, and the couple traveled to the food mecca of Napa Valley, California, to soak up experience in the restaurant industry. “It was awesome,” she says, “but I think of Texas as a ‘boomerang state’ somehow. People leave, but they end up returning—like we did. There’s just something about this place that draws you back.” She and Dave fulfilled a dream by opening their own restaurant, The Range in Salado, which became a fixture in the community for the next 17 years.
Their marriage didn’t fare as well as the restaurant did, however, and in 2011 the couple split up. Katie turned her attention to raising her four children—three sons and a daughter. She answered an ad looking for a substitute teacher at Christ Church School and ended up joining the staff permanently as a pre-K teacher. The lure of the food industry even followed her there—she says she couldn’t resist using cooking in her classroom, “We made things like alphabet pancakes and I taught them how to measure ingredients.”
One day Katie spied a for-sale sign outside the door of Classic Catering in Temple. “I said to myself, ‘Ohhh! That’s what I really want to do,’” she remembers. She took a leap of faith and bought the business, rebranding it as Classic Events, which caters events all over Bell County. She is proud to tell her clients that many of her menu items are based on recipes passed down from her mom.
Katie turned to exercise to help her manage the stress of single parenthood and business ownership after her divorce. “I had two friends who opened CrossFit CenTex in Belton. I started working out with them there and loved it.”
Never one to ignore an entrepreneurial opportunity, Katie soon began delivering healthy culinary concoctions to CenTex gym members in need of on-the-go snacks and dinners. “That’s when RosieJo’s Meals, my meal-delivery business, was born,” she explains. “The name is a blend of two words that are happy for me—rosie—and my mom’s middle name, Jo.” Opened in 2015, RosieJo’s offers pre-packaged dinners from her storefront in Temple and also ships them to clients all over the United States.
As Katie’s businesses grew, she became more involved in the broader CrossFit community, having been asked to cater for the crowds at large fundraisers and events. “Through that, I’ve met people from all over the world, like athletes who’ve competed in the Olympics in all different sports. Now I get to go to events like the CrossFit Games and feed people. It’s opened doors for me to get to travel and cook for elite athletes who, by the way, are just about the most appreciative consumers ever! They’re so excited to have food that’s healthy but really tastes good,” she says.
Katie keeps a watchful eye on both of her businesses, though, wary of pushing herself to grow them too fast and risk losing the joy she finds in the kitchen. “When I just come in and cook and don’t worry about the logistics of running my businesses, I’m the happiest person,” she laughs. “I love my business, but I really love to cook.”
Katie Hermann keeps delicious, nutritious dips readily available for after-school munchies. “I like to keep this hummus in the fridge for a healthy snack that everyone in my household enjoys. I love the sweet mellowness of roasted garlic, so I combined it with cilantro to give this hummus a hearty depth of flavor. It works well with fall veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, radishes and peas.”
Roasted Garlic and Cilantro Hummus
28 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Juice of 4 large lemons (more if you like)
2 tablespoons tahini
3/4 cup olive oil
1 bunch cilantro
1/4 cup whole garlic cloves, skins removed
Salt to taste
Place garlic cloves in a heavy-bottomed saucepot. Cover them with olive oil and simmer for 30 minutes. Put the garlic cloves and 3/4 cup of the oil from the pan into a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend to desired consistency. Serve with pita toasts or slices of your favorite vegetables.
