Making the BBQ Block generates offcuts. When you cut a live-edge oak plank to board dimensions, the pieces that come off the ends and edges are too small for another board. They’re not useless — they’re just small. The question of what to do with them came up early in the production process. The first […]
The BBQ Block launched in May 2024 at £99. We’d priced it by working backwards from what the material and process cost — not by finding a number that felt comfortable and working backwards from there. The oak, the maker’s time, the oil finish, the quality checking, the signing: these cost what they cost. £99 […]
Making the BBQ Block involves a sequence of steps that go from a rough air-dried plank to a finished serving board. Each step involves a decision, not just an action. Here’s the process as it actually runs. From Plank to Board Step one is plank selection and assessment — covered separately in our sourcing post, […]
The BBQ Block is made from English oak sourced from woodland local to Reigate, in the Surrey and Kent area. When we say local, we mean that specifically — not as a marketing approximation, but as a deliberate sourcing decision with traceable supply. Local sourcing is a phrase that has been used loosely enough that […]
During a visit to Pilgrim Brewery Tap Room, in our home town, thinking about festivals ahead of the team when we were interrupted by a novel snack served alongside our beer: Serious Pig Crunchy Snacking Cheese. Each bite was a revelation—crispy, salty, and bursting with the rich, mature flavour of Italian quattrocento cheese. As we […]
The BBQ Block concept started with a practical problem at Bison Hill Grill events. We needed a serving surface worthy of the food we were cooking. The gap between taking something off the fire at its best and putting it down on a surface that looked wrong was a genuine issue — not because it […]
April 2024. The first Bison Hill Grill event of the season. After the winter months, the live-fire operation restarts — and this year, it was restarting better prepared than any previous season. The Bison Hill Grill is our mobile open-air kitchen, operating across Surrey, Sussex, and Kent. The spring season traditionally opens around Easter, which […]
March 2024. Sixteen months since the Gaucho BBQ Grill Apron launched. The design is identical to what we signed off in July 2022. The 12oz heavy denim, the eight utility features, the crossback strap configuration, the D-ring hardware, the Protected Design layout — unchanged. In consumer product terms, this is unusual. Most brands find a […]
In February 2024 we visited the embroidery workshop that does the personalisation work on our Gaucho BBQ Grill Aprons. We’d been working with this team since we set up the personalisation programme, but we hadn’t spent a full day there watching the work happen. We should have gone sooner. The workshop employs adults with learning […]
The first corporate enquiry came from a marketing agency. They wanted twelve Gaucho BBQ Grill Aprons branded with their client’s logo for a hospitality event. They’d found us through a search, liked the quality of the product, and wanted to know if we could put a logo on it. At that point, we couldn’t — […]
