About
Chef Rene Johnson
Chef Rene creates the kind of experience people remember
Chef Rene Johnson believes guests remember more than how the food tasted.
They remember how the room felt. They remember whether they felt welcomed, whether the food arrived with care, and whether the people behind the event paid attention to the details.
That belief has shaped Blackberry Soul Fine Catering since she started the company in 2007.
Today, Blackberry Soul assembles culinary and event teams around the needs of each occasion, from intimate dinners and corporate events to fundraisers and cultural celebrations across the San Francisco Bay Area. The company has served intimate gatherings of twelve and events for more than 2,500 guests, including major companies, civic organizations, cultural institutions, and private families.
Events she has catered have welcomed guests including Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee, Gavin Newsom, Danny Glover, Dr. Cornel West, H.E.R., and Ledisi. In 2026 she catered a Super Bowl gathering for NFL families. Chef Rene brings deeply flavorful food, thoughtful presentation, strong leadership, and a clear understanding that hospitality begins long before the first plate reaches the table.
Forbes, Business Insider, EBONY, Huffington Post, KRON 4, and more have featured her work. In 2025 she was named Powerful Women of the Bay Entrepreneur of the Year.
See the coverage →
Rooted in tradition, shaped by her vegan journey
Chef Rene spent a period of her life eating vegan, and that experience changed how she cooks.
She knew how it felt to receive the one meal that looked added at the last minute. She saw vegan and vegetarian guests get food with less thought, less flavor, and fewer choices than everyone else at the same event.
She decided her clients would never feel that.
So she went back to the recipes passed down through her family and learned how to hold onto their richness and comfort without the ingredients most cooks consider essential. Her vegan and vegetarian dishes had to taste generous. They had to feel like soul food. They had to belong at the center of the table.
She no longer follows a vegan diet, and the range stayed. Blackberry Soul serves traditional, vegan, vegetarian, and dietary-conscious menus with the same care, so a mixed room shares one experience and nobody sits outside of it.
She never stopped taking dishes apart to see how they work, and she never stopped at soul food.
Blackberry Soul builds each event’s kitchen around what the menu and service require, drawing from chefs the company knows and trusts. Chef Rene sets the culinary standard, leads select events as executive chef, and ensures oversight when a newer chef joins the team.
From family recipes to Blackberry Soul
Chef Rene's relationship with food began in her grandmother's kitchen.
Her grandmother cooked from scratch, using family recipes, fresh ingredients, and knowledge that rarely came with written measurements. Chef Rene remembers the garden, the peaches and blackberries, and the feeling of being surrounded by family while food came together with love. Those memories gave Blackberry Soul its name.
She did not take a traditional path into the culinary world. She spent years in finance and the mortgage industry, bringing homemade desserts to her clients. After the mortgage crisis changed the direction of her career, she went back to the food, creativity, and connection that had always felt like home.
She started Blackberry Soul in 2007 and built it through relationships, persistence, hard lessons, and a willingness to learn every part of the business behind the food.
Her cookbook, From My Heart to Your Table, collects traditional and plant-based soul food recipes inspired by her grandmothers, including some that have been in the family for generations. Sharing them is an act of love.
Warmth, standards, and a clear point of view
Chef Rene is warm, funny, charming, sharp, demanding, and direct.
She notices the weak sauce. She notices the messy station. She notices when someone has talent but has not yet learned how to lead. People close to her describe a chef who cusses and kisses, because she will tell a cook exactly what needs to improve, explain why it matters, then pull them aside and remind them what they are capable of.
Her directness comes from care. The food matters. The client matters. The team matters. Standards protect all three.
She leads with the energy of a seasoned business owner and an artist who can already see the finished experience before anyone else walks into the room.
A love letter to the Black experience
Chef Rene created the Soul Food Stroll because she wanted something more than a buffet.
She wanted guests to feel like they were strolling through a neighborhood built around food, music, history, and joy. Each table carries its own name and personality, so the meal becomes an experience guests move through with their plates. Everything is made from scratch. A DJ plays. Someone starts line dancing, and the room joins in.
Children eat free, and they work. They help serve the adults and clean up afterward, honoring the old-school manners Chef Rene grew up with. The adults tip them for it.
The Soul Food Stroll is rooted in the Black experience, and everyone is welcome. People have called it the heartbeat of Oakland because it looks like the city itself, with different races, cultures, ages, and backgrounds gathering to eat, laugh, dance, and connect. Guests leave feeling like they have joined a wider circle of family and friends.
Food as care
Chef Rene uses food to serve people outside her business too.
She has opened her kitchen to City Eats so the organization could prepare meals for people experiencing homelessness. Each year she partners with her granddaughter's Girl Scout troop to cook for families staying at Ronald McDonald House. She teaches cooking classes for teenage mothers, helping them make simple, wholesome meals for their children.
That last one carries personal weight, because Chef Rene became a mother as a teenager. She understands what it takes to care for a child while you are still growing into yourself. She teaches those young women without judgment and sends them home with skills they can use that night.
Food can comfort someone, build confidence, preserve dignity, and remind a person that somebody thought about them.
Building community alongside the business
After years of building Blackberry Soul, Chef Rene founded Link & Thrive, a community for women entrepreneurs.
She learned that mastering your craft is only part of building a business. She had spent years getting the food right, but the company could only grow so far while she carried everything herself and too few people knew the work existed. Chef Rene had to learn how to build a dependable team, introduce herself in unfamiliar rooms, and create the relationships that helped Blackberry Soul grow.
She tells women that keeping something good to yourself can keep it from reaching the people who need it. Link & Thrive is the room she wishes she had while learning those lessons.
She has spoken at Google about what she learned building a business from scratch. Members come at every stage, some developing a first business and some leading established companies, and they learn from each other as much as from her.
Learn more about Link & Thrive →
Chef. Founder. Author. Mentor. Community builder.
Chef Rene Johnson has built a life around bringing people together.
Sometimes she does it through a beautifully prepared meal. Sometimes through a crowded dance floor, a cooking class, a hard conversation in the kitchen, or a room full of entrepreneurs helping one another grow. Wherever she is, she wants people to feel welcomed, cared for, and part of something they will remember.
