We have now completed our first major event with Grillin N Chillin: The Arizona Balloon Classic (ABC) in Goodyear AZ.
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| Grillin at ABC |
It was a learning experience. We learned that event promoters lie. Sometimes a lot. Like about the number of attendees, about "curating” menus so there aren't multiple vendors selling the same thing, about the number of vendors they are booking, etc. All valuable lessons, to be sure, but the most important lesson we learned at ABC was about Culinary Napalm.
ABC turned out to be one of those events where you sit on your butts for 8 of the 10 hours they require you to be open for the three days in a row you have to be there. And then get crazy-busy for, maybe, an hour at a time.
This time, the only real rush was on Saturday night when we had an order line 6 or 8 deep. And that's when I set the trailer on fire.
Because it had been so slow, I only had one of the three burners lit on the char-grill. I had my various squeeze bottles of oils and sauces on a sheet pan on the cold side of the grill.
Little did I know, but at some point during the rush, I must have bumped the burner control knobs, turning them all to "high". My first clue was when I grabbed the teriyaki sauce squeeze bottle and the bottom dropped right out of it. Almost simultaneously, the caramel sauce, cooking oil, and BBQ sauce bottles all collapsed in a puddle, their contents gushing across the pan, over the sides, and down into the grill.
Within seconds, the sticky, volatile goo had ignited. I instantly flipped off all the burners, but the fire already had a head of its own. Flames were shooting two feet above the grill grates and getting perilously close to the fire suppression system components.
Kathryn, who was busy taking orders, didn't notice. I yelled to her (the food truck is noisy enough that yelling is pretty-much the norm) that "I had a situation". She glanced back, her eyes got a little wide, then turned back to taking orders. Later she told me, "Well, what could I do to help you? Might as well just keep working, right?" She had a good point.
The customers didn't even know there was anything wrong. They must have thought it was all part of the show. I mean, it's a char-grill truck and we sauté too. So, there are supposed to be flames, right??
So I did what I could to limit the fuel for the fire and worked to pull the drip pan out to try to douse the fire without resorting to the extinguisher. I'd pull the pan out a few inches, flop a wet towel on it and repeat. It was a moderately successful strategy (if arm and eyebrow hair are unimportant) and eventually the flames were out.
Then all I had to do was fully remove the drip pan, scrape the mass of charred, molten, culinary napalm-soaked towels into the trash. Nothing to it.
Crisis averted, I turned back to the order rack to find 12 new tickets waiting for me. Kathryn had been busy, and I was officially in the weeds.
When we got home, we designed and ordered a set of custom burner knob guards and bought a speed rack for my sauces. Problem solved. Until the next one.
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| Concept & Design |
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| Finished and installed. |
