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 is when the first outdoor events start booking seriously. We’d used the winter months to do something we hadn’t done systematically before: document every note we’d made at 2023 events, review them as a set, and build specific improvements for 2024.
What the Winter Review Produced
Three specific improvements for the 2024 event season came out of the winter review:
- Better fire management practice for windy conditions. We’d had events in 2023 where wind made heat control difficult and added to prep time. We developed a more structured approach to fire positioning and windbreak use that reduced that variable.
- Dedicated tool storage for transit. Moving kit between events had always worked, but it wasn’t systematic. Individual tools could be hard to locate quickly when setting up under time pressure. We built a proper tool roll and transit case system so everything has a place and arrives in the right order.
- Improved plating approach for large groups. For events with 30+ guests, getting food from grill to plate at temperature requires sequencing. We refined the sequence for 2024 based on what had slowed us down in 2023.
A Fuller Calendar
The 2024 event calendar was fuller than 2023 from the start. Word-of-mouth from 2023 events was generating direct enquiries — people who’d attended as guests and wanted to book for their own occasions. That’s the right kind of growth: earned through the quality of the work, not through marketing spend.
One new request stood out: a food festival wanting the Bison Hill Grill to operate for three consecutive days. That was our largest commitment to date — a multi-day operation at scale. We accepted it. It required different planning to a single-day event: more prep, more kit, more logistics. We used it as a forcing function to tighten up every part of the operation.
The Kit Throughout
Every Bison Hill Grill event runs on Bison Hill kit. Gaucho aprons worn by the team throughout. King Forks and Bison Skewers at the grill. BBQ Blades for grate work. The BBQ Block as the serving surface when we have them available. Running our own kit in live conditions is the most honest product test we have. The 2024 season would give us more of that data than any previous year.
