Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet News and Press

Hearth & Home
October 2007

One of the Best: At Kalamazoo, Geoff Bullard is following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather and creating top quality grills.

One of the Best

At Kalamazoo, Geoff Bullard is following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather and creating top quality grills.

Geoff Bullard’s goal may be lofty, but it’s simple: to design the very best products in the world.

As chief of product development for Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, he is well on his way to accomplishing that. Kalamazoo grills are among the most innovative and well-built on the market. They are constructed with the finest premium-quality materials available, have an unrivaled list of features and options, and offer superior performance and great styling. And with prices reaching $10,000 and higher, they also have the distinction of being some of the most expensive barbecues ever built.

The first Kalamazoo Grill was built in 1906 by Bullard’s great-grandfather, Lewis Bullard, at the request of business tycoon W. E. Upjohn. The elder Bullard’s business, Kalamazoo Sheet Metal, manufactured pill-compression machines for the pharmaceutical company. The sheet metal company also made grills for other locals at the time, but the plans eventually languished for nearly a century in an old steel filing cabinet.

How the barbecue went from filing drawer to what barbecue expert Steven Raichlen calls “biggest, meanest, off-the-charts grill in the land,” lies in the hands of fate.

Geoff Bullard had no intention of taking over the family business when he graduated college with degrees in creative writing and international affairs. He took a job with the State Department and moved to Russia, running entrepreneurial programs there. In Russia, Bullard experienced food shortages and a general lack of consumer goods, including barbecues.

“I befriended a guy at an auto factory and convinced him to make me a grill,” Bullard remembers. But the rudimentary barbecue bore little resemblance to what he envisioned and sketched out on a piece of paper. Still, he had a grill, and with charcoal he made himself, was able to make the most of the meat and poultry he managed to buy from local farmers.

That was the closest Bullard came to making barbecue for a long time. He stayed in Russia even after the State Department program ended in 1992, launching into a clothing business that was one of the first companies to sell products over the Internet. By 1994, Russia began to get dangerous, according to Bullard, and by 1997 he knew it was time to leave. He returned home to Kalamazoo to run the sheet metal business.

It was while he was cleaning out a file cabinet at the company in 1998 that he found his great-grandfather’s grill design. The discovery immediately set the wheels in motion, and Bullard began the production of the Kalamazoo Steadfast Grill later that year.

When he couldn’t afford to produce a printed brochure, Bullard created a video tape on the product and mailed it to Frontgate catalog. “The buyer said it was the first product video he’d ever gotten,” laughs Bullard, “but he agreed to carry it.” The company sold a total of 200 grills the first year.

In addition to the Steadfast, Bullard has gone on to develop a host of other outdoor cooking and living products. Kalamazoo Bread Breaker line features a 36- by 24-inch cooking surface and integrated wood chip smoking tray, infrared searing burner and infrared cradle rotisserie system. A wok-ready side-burner is optional.

Hybrid versions of the Steadfast and Bread Breaker lines offer the ability to cook over gas, charcoal and wood using a unique drawer system to hold the solid fuels. The company’s innovative approach to incorporating multiple fuels on one unit has won praise from a number of renowned chefs, who now use the Hybrid models in the cooking programs. An offset smoker box is another option to increase the versatility of these Kalamazoo grills, providing the ability to do genuine low-and-slow cooking.

Kalamazoo’s Sculpture line is beautifully designed to resemble a piece of garden sculpture. Each piece is hand-made and signed like a work of art. Available in gas and charcoal versions, the grills have 24- by 18-inch cooking surfaces and come on wheeled carts.

The newest additional to the family is the Edo gas grill. Introduced this year, the sleek and simple design is inspired by Japanese yakitori carts and, in fact, Edo is the old name for Tokyo. When the two flat top panels are closed, concealing the control panel and cooking grid, the unit resembles a stylish table. The panel slide open to uncover an 18- by 24-inch grilling surface and become counter shelves. The cooking surface can be either completely solid for hibachi cooking or custom-configured with any combination of laser cuts for fish, meat or veggies.

Still in a preliminary launch, according to Bullard, the new grill is targeted to the growing number of people interested in hibachi-style grilling. Though more limited in its versatility, the Edo perfects the art of flash-grilling fresh fish, steaks and vegetables, he says.

The company has recently announced it is discontinuing the formerly entry-level pedestal grill line. Priced between $1,500 and $1,600, it was too similar to products sold as mass merchants today, according to Bullard. Currently, prices for the other models now range from $5,000 to $11,500 and can go up, depending on the options.

“What sets us apart from the other high-end grill manufacturers is our heavier metal gauge and construction,” Bullard says. “We use a frame construction, like an airplane. Our grills reach hotter temperatures than ordinary grills – 1,000 degrees – and when metal heats it expands, then contracts. You need a frame to be able to maintain the structural integrity.”

Each grill is hand-built and welded, and features a deep hopper cooking system and high-profile hood that offer better heat dynamics and convection, easier cleaning of the grease trap, and greatly reduced flare-ups. Unique, 50,000 Btu, bowtie-shaped, cast stainless steel “Dragon Burners” are the workhorses of the grills. Laser-cut cooking grids can be custom-configured with different patterns for meat, fish and vegetables, as well as customer’s initials, company logo or other design.

“Bottom line: We offer superior cooking and superior construction,” says Bullard.

While the philosophy remains intact, the name of the company has recently been changed from Kalamazoo Grills to Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet to better reflect the expanding product lines. “We wanted to go beyond grills and felt the name was too limiting,” explains Bullard.

One of the new products is a pizza oven, which rests on any countertop. It was introduced in 2007 and has been a great seller, according to Bullard. “We can’t keep them in stock,” he says. The company also offers a gorgeous stainless-steel martini bar, as well as ice makers, refrigeration systems, wet bars, sinks outdoor cabinetry and more.

In fact, Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet is now concentrating heavily on outdoor kitchens, which Bullard estimates account for 70 percent of the company’s business. The modular, stainless steel island kitchens start at around $15,000 and go to $150,000 and more, says Bullard. “We just shipped one for $120,000,” he says. “And we recently did an incredible project for a very famous CEO (a privacy clause in the contract prevents Bullard from revealing his name). We designed seven outdoor kitchens – one for each of his seven homes – at about $40,000 each.”

The outdoor kitchens don’t have to be budget-breaking, insists Bullard. “People can buy a couple modular pieces a year and add on. The pieces easily bolt together. Some people do a grilling area first and then will add a wet bar area later.”

“Our core value is to allow our customers to have a continuous and ongoing culinary adventure with our grills and outdoor living products,” he says.

Although Bullard has no professional design experience, it is he who comes up with the initial product ideas and sketches. He turns his scrap-paper and back-of-the-napkin jots over to Kim Thomas, who does the engineering work and prepares all the design plans.

“Kim is a genius,” says Bullard. “She has been with the company for 11 years and is the one who brings my concepts to life. For instance, when I had first sketched the shape of the pizza oven, I said, ‘I want feet and I want Italian laser cuts.’ She researched designs for the cuts and is the one who actually created it. She has been with me since the beginning and has been instrumental to the success of the company.”

Two years ago Bullard sold the company to Synetro Capital, a private investment firm run by Pete Georgiadis, for an amount he says he cannot disclose. “I was not interested in running the business on a day-to-day basis,” he explains. “I wanted to be free to design and develop the best outdoor living products available. This arrangement has enabled us to grow the business and let me to do what I love to do.”

Having access to additional resources has also enabled the company to step up its public relations efforts. In just a couple of years, Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet has managed to go from an under-the-radar, if not virtually obscure, grill company with a quirky name, to a brand that’s the darling of the media and celebrity chefs.

The company has been featured in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal and The Robb Report to Food & Wine magazine, Time and Sports Illustrated. Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet products have also been included on PBS, NPR, The Today Show, Good Morning America and the Travel Channel, to name a few.

“I never spent a dime on public relations before,” reveals Bullard. “I took a very conservative approach and didn’t want to grow too fast. I always felt – and we still feel – that our best PR is the product. If the product didn’t perform, the media coverage and the chefs’ endorsements wouldn’t happen.”

But happen they have. In addition to garnering tremendous media exposure over the past 18 months, Kalamazoo has racked up glowing praise from celebrity chefs Rick Bayless and Michal Chiarella, and barbecue expert and cookbook author Steven Raichlen, each of whom now use Kalamazoo on their televised cooking series or in their cooking classes.

“We have been able to develop these chef relationships because we have the resources now to give product away,” he explains. “The chefs use it and like it and we build momentum.”

Exactly how much the company spends on its marketing and public relations program, Bullard will not reveal, but acknowledges it is a low figure. “We put more money into the product development than into spin,” he says.

Georgiadis directs the marketing on a day-to-day-strategy basis, but Bullard decides which products should receive the focus. Recently the emphasis has been on the company’s new pizza oven. “It is part of our whole vision to move beyond just grills into the next dimension of outdoor cooking,” he says.

Another marketing initiative that Georgiadis has spearheaded is the Oasis Award, which the company is running in conjunction with Garden Design magazine. The contest, open to architects and designers, judges the best on-paper plans for an outdoor kitchen incorporating Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet products.

“Pete has driven that,” Bullard says. “The idea is for us to be recognized as an authority on outdoor kitchens.”

Today, Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet employs 25 people, most of whom have been with the company an average of 10 years. Management, sales and marketing are handled out of Chicago where Synetro is based, but product development, manufacturing and customer relations are based in the company’s 40,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The company operates on a lean manufacturing model built on light inventories, according to Bullard. “As a result, we are flexible to tailor a product to a customer’s specifications without long lead times.” The primarily made-to-order products are typically shipped within seven days. Custom outdoor kitchens three to four weeks.

Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet sells through dealers in every major U.S. city. Where there is no dealer within reasonable distance, the company will sell directly to the consumer. “We will always respect a dealer’s territory,” he says.

One of those dealers is Jon Carr, president of Grillmaster’s Garden in Zionsville, Indiana. The specialty barbecue and outdoor kitchen retailer has carried Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet for the past two-and-one-half years, along with a number of other grill lines.

Kalamazoo is what I classify as the Rolls Royce of grills,” Carr says. “It is an analogy I use quite a bit because we have a Rolls Royce and Bentley dealership right across the street. The detail they design in their products has always impressed me. They are innovative and offer new and unique approaches like the smoker boxes, the hybrid grill and the pizza ovens. The add something beyond the other companies.”

This “added something” has built a following for Kalamazoo grills and other products among top chefs and anyone who appreciates, and can afford, the finest in life. The very best products in the world? Maybe. Among the very best products in the barbecue industry? Definitely.