Hungry for a great meal and a close encounter with the real Rondout Valley? Come check out the Running Deer Inn Bar & Road Kill Grill in Napanoch, a cherished (and haunted) establishment with a heart forged over decades of family and neighborhood love. Their menu offers dishes you won’t find anywhere else.
“The word-of-mouth is getting out about my menu, and it’s hard to keep this stuff on the shelves,” Christine Schiff, aka The Doe Running the Show, says. “I’ve got people coming from Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Newburgh, Jersey. We serve bison, ostrich, kangaroo, venison, yak, and wild boar burgers, so it takes a few visits to try it all.”
Alongside the game, the menu is full of comfort food meatloaf, sausage and peppers, cabbage and kielbasa, mac ’n’ cheese and treats like shrimp scampi and New York strip steak. But the best treat of all, one you’ll get even if you just stop in for a cold beer on a Saturday afternoon, might be the vibes. This is a cherished place, one with history. “I literally grew up in this bar,” Schiff says. “It was my grandfather's favorite place. I didn't learn till later that he was having an affair with the bartender. And as a little girl, my dad used to bring me in there all the time. I was my grandfather's little princess, and I was my dad's princess too, very much spoiled by them. They were very important in my life.”
It was a childhood full of laughter, pool games, and regulars who felt like family. After her grandfather died doing what he loved, falling from his barstool with a cold beer in hand, Schiff would come back for a beer with her dad—even after moving 45 minutes away to Sullivan County, where she married, raised her family, and worked in politics as an aide to former congressman Chris Gibson.
“Sullivan County’s another world, and I had a whole other life out there,” she says. “My husband is the sheriff there. But twelve years ago I got out of politics and into bartending, and it was incredibly freeing.”
A gig at Crystal Springs, a New Jersey golf club, honed her skills. “It was so much fun,” she says. “I was working weddings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday every week, and it was a real crash course. I started out knowing nothing but how to pour a beer or a shot, but not how to make a drink. But when you have a thousand people charging at the bar to get their free drink, you learn fast, and you learn to work fast too. My coworkers taught me everything. Then we moved to Myrtle Beach, which was fun too—really busy, and I had the beach right outside my window every day.”
“The word-of-mouth is getting out about my menu, and it’s hard to keep this stuff on the shelves,” Christine Schiff, aka The Doe Running the Show,” says.
When her dad got sick, she came home to Napanoch to care for him. “I came up with the idea of telling him I wanted to buy this place, and he was so ill and tired, but that thought just lit him up,” she says. “He was so excited. He was going to be part of it with me. I lost him before the sale closed in 2023. But he was in on the beginning of the process, and everything that you see in the bar is in dedication to my grandfather and my dad.”
That’s true of the exotic menu; the family hunted, and Schiff grew up eating venison, bear, snake, squirrel, and rabbit. It’s true of the decor, from the mounts—two bucks and a bear, in which her father took great pride—to her grandfather’s copper moonshine still and the vintage hand tools she found in the backyard of the family home and now displays on the walls. “You name it, it’s there,” she says. “I have swords on the wall; I have a five-foot rattlesnake skin someone gave me. People bring me gifts to add to the collection. It’s fun.” Napanoch has a rich history; the town was originally powered by the mills that arose along the creek. Old Route 209 and Main Street are built on the Minisink Trail first trod by the Lenape, who called it “land overflowed by water.”
“Twelve years ago I got out of politics and into bartending, and it was incredibly freeing.”
– Christine Schiff
“I have a family that comes down from Olive twice a month—the kids love it because of the animals—and the wife just wrote me a really nice review, saying how great it was to take their family of six out without wrecking the budget.”– Christine Schiff
Things sometimes got heated; Schiff remembers an old story about a colonial farm: “They had a cannon in their yard; there was a lot of conflict with the Indians in the early days,” she says. “They were the wealthiest family in town, and other people would settle nearby for their protection. But the story has it that when they were finally slaughtered, it was by the British…anyway, there’s a lot of drama to the history here, a lot of death. I think that’s why we’re so haunted.” The bar, she says, has several resident spirits who still come by.
Today’s Napanoch residents, descended from the folks who worked the area’s many resorts and the nearby factories, are a peaceful bunch. “Folks here are really laid back—they love just making the house nice, having a decent car, and having fun together,” Schiff says. “The regulars are a huge part of what gives this bar its charm. When I first opened it as owner, people came flooding in with stories about Grandpa and Dad. Somebody brought me an old Polaroid picture. It felt so wonderful knowing how loved they were.”
To lean into that cozy vibe, she makes sure her menu is within local means.
“We serve a lot of cabbage, a lot of Polish dishes—we aren’t Polish, but we ate a lot of that because it’s affordable and wonderful,” she says. “We have fried baloney sandwiches—when was the last time you saw that on a menu? I did fine in the winter because the locals could come in and dine, and the other night we sold four orders of our kielbasa and cabbage dish. I have a family that comes down from Olive twice a month—the kids love it because of the animals—and the wife just wrote me a really nice review, saying how great it was to take their family of six out without wrecking the budget.”
The scene, she says, is a refuge from the world of high-tech, low-touch communication. “People come in and have a beer and some good conversation and laughs,” she says, “instead of being on their phones all the time. It’s still the community’s watering hole, the place you can go for friendly chat and a game of darts.”
Lively karaoke happens on Friday nights, and live music on Saturdays. And any day of the week, you’ll find humor and friendly love in the air, a love that encompasses everyone, from the baloney sandwich fans to the people who’ve always wanted to try a yak burger. Tune in to the RDI, as the locals have always called it, by following their Facebook page at The RDI. You never know what Schiff will think of next.
“I just added camel to the menu, and I told my staff we’d start it on Wednesdays,” she says. “Hump day, get it?”
the running deer inn bar & road kill grill
28 State Rte 55, Napanoch
845-210-7341,
barnapanoch.com
