This was our biggest BBQ event yet.
Around 220 guests, three chefs, an enormous amount of food and enough equipment that we needed a truck just to get everything to the venue.
We knew it was going to be a big day.
What we didn’t know was that before we even started cooking, our original BBQ pits weren’t going to turn up.
When 1,350 Satay and Skewers Is Only the Beginning
The numbers on this order were slightly ridiculous.
There were:
- 400 Teriyaki Chicken Skewers
- 400 Chicken Satay
- 350 Pork Satay
- 250 Beef Satay
- 10kg Cajun Chicken Wings
- 10kg Honey BBQ Chicken Wings
- 5kg Gochujang Pork Belly
- 5kg Pork Jowl
- 10kg Argentinian Prawns
- 5kg Sambal Stingray
- 5kg BBQ Sotong
- 8kg of sausages
And all of it had to be cooked during a three-hour BBQ service.
For something this size, food is only one part of the job.
There are grills, tables, charcoal, tools, trays, containers, serving equipment and all the little things you don’t really notice until you have to transport them.
This one was equipment-heavy enough that we needed a truck to ferry everything over.
Then the BBQ Pits Didn’t Arrive
For a large event, you try to plan for everything.
But sometimes the thing you’re relying on simply doesn’t turn up.
The three BBQ pits we had ordered never arrived.
At that point there wasn’t much time for discussion.
We needed grills.
So we managed to rent three gas BBQ pits for the event instead.
Not ideal, but problem solved.
Or so we thought.
Three Pits Became Two
Halfway through the event, one of the rented gas pits broke down.
That left us with:
Two working BBQ pits.
For 220 people.
And a very large amount of uncooked food still waiting its turn.
No joke.
At that point there’s not much value in standing around complaining about the broken pit.
You just reorganise.
The cooking had to keep moving, the three chefs had to work around the remaining grills, and food still had to reach the guests at a reasonable pace.
It probably looked like organised chaos from our side.
From the guests’ side, hopefully it just looked like a BBQ.
The Part That Still Makes Us Laugh
Afterwards, people couldn’t understand how we managed to cook that much food.
To be fair, halfway through the event we weren’t entirely sure either.
But the food went out, the event carried on, and the client was extremely happy with how everything turned out.
That was probably the most satisfying part of the day.
Not because everything went perfectly.
It absolutely didn’t.
It was satisfying because quite a few things didn’t go according to plan and the event still worked.
What We Learnt From Our Biggest BBQ
The main lesson was very simple:
For events this big, don’t leave anything important until the last minute.
Large events need redundancy.
More preparation time.
More equipment checks.
And preferably BBQ pits that actually arrive.
The bigger an event gets, the less margin you have for one missing item or one piece of equipment failing.
Because when one of three grills stops working for a small gathering, it’s irritating.
When it happens while you’re trying to feed 220 people, it becomes a very different afternoon.
But that’s also why we still remember this event.
Our biggest BBQ up to that point didn’t teach us how to run an event where everything goes perfectly.
It taught us that when something goes wrong, dinner still has to be served.
