Somewhere along I-85 as it runs out of Atlanta, past the piano store and the car dealership, sits an unlikely church. Each fall, its members make the pilgrimage from near and far to gather for a celebration called Eggtoberfest, and the most devoted refer to themselves, proudly, as “Eggheads.”
Even if you haven’t seen the grill in person, you’ve probably heard these three little words: “Big Green Egg.” The name sticks in your brain, and those who’ve sat at the altar, flipping burgers, smoking brisket and cooking whatever else floats their fancy, remain forever bonded. Because in those words is a prayer of transformation; the barbecue is no longer just a barbecue. It’s a sight to behold, an experience to be felt. The feng shui of a backyard shifts, almost literally, with the weight of thick ceramic in unmistakable, glossy green.
For years, I’d heard Eggs spoken about with an awe usually reserved for luxury cars and watch brands, not a commodity like a grill. How did this low-tech, ancient device come to command a cult status that’s persisted for decades? The product itself is not exactly convenient. The most popular size, Large, clocks in at 162 pounds. Big Green Eggs aren’t available online but rather must be tracked down and purchased at an authorized dealer. And they arrive with no frills, just ceramic molded into a familiar shape, sealed airtight except for a vent on the bottom and another on top, with a hinge to open and close and a stainless steel grate on which to cook.
But that’s all it needs. It’s the most versatile grill on the market: it can smoke, grill, roast and bake, holding its temperature unbelievably steady in any season, whether at 225 degrees for smoking a pork butt overnight or at 750 degrees for crispy pizza in seconds. There’s a bit of a learning curve, and it certainly demands effort, but after a few cooks you’ll have the air vents dialed in. And before long you’ll wonder, Heavens to Betsy, how did I ever get by without one?
Because the company distributes through trusted dealers, its headquarters in Atlanta is the only official Egg store in the country. It also operates as a showroom of sorts. A constellation of round ceramic orbs crowds the room, seven sizes in all, and an expanse of "EGGcessories," from fire starters to hats and shirts that say things like “Keep Calm and Egg On,” line the walls. All authorized dealers also carry the brand’s annual, complimentary publication: Big Green Egg Lifestyle Magazine.
It wasn’t always this way. For decades, BGE grew slowly but steadily; as a private company unbothered by shareholders, it doesn’t share exact numbers, but according to CEO Ardy Arani, it’s grown “fivefold in terms of size and volume” in the decade since he came aboard in 2010.
This growth caught competitors off guard. As recently as 2011, an executive vice president from Weber-Stephen Products told the New York Times that while ceramic outdoor cookers have an ardent following, “most outdoor grilling enthusiasts find them too expensive and too complicated to use.” Just five years later, Weber unveiled its Summit Charcoal Grill, a heavy, thick steel grill that looks an awful lot like an egg.
With the company coming up on its 50th anniversary, I headed south, to Georgia’s biggest city. I wanted to meet the man who started it all — and begin compiling an oral history of the wonder that is the BGE.
Big in Japan
Big Green Egg founder Ed Fisher, a self-described “youthful octogenarian,” meets me at his company’s Atlanta headquarters. Clad in a suit for the conversation, he’s quick-witted and draped in Southern charm. Despite not coming into the office regularly anymore, he knows everyone’s name and gets caught up chatting with people as we stroll through the building.
Philadelphia bred, Fisher studied psychology at Temple before enlisting in the navy, which took him overseas to Japan. Upon returning home, he set his sights on opening a small business, a path taken by his three older brothers, and in 1974, Atlanta’s Pachinko House opened its doors. Fisher imported two Japanese items he thought would sell well in America: the ultra-popular Japanese arcade game of the same name and clay kamado grills. He was only half right.
Ed Fisher, founder of Big Green Egg: Well now, you’re having me reach way back. The only people that had access to kamado grills were military people. They found them in Japan and they flew them back at no charge. But by and large, it was not well known in America. It was not well known at all.
When I started back in ’74, I had seen them in Japan and I had cooked on one in the States, because someone brought one back. The first couple times I tasted the food, I thought it was an accident, you know. “Hey, this is really good, but I must be super hungry. Nothing is this good.”
When I opened the store on Claremont Road, the cookers started out as a byproduct — we were selling games from Japan called pachinko machines. We brought them in by the container load and sold lots of them. But it was a seasonal type thing. And I sort of felt that if we got something else that could offset the months when the pachinko was not selling well, then we’d have a real business.
The first day I opened up at nine o’clock in the morning, I had a big overhead at the time: a 400-square-foot store and 20 or 30 of these kamados in the back. I wasn’t at all sure that anybody would go for this thing, because at that time, the metal grills were what everybody had.
I remember throwing wings on the grill and someone came in and tasted them. It took 30 minutes to make my first sale. I figured, “Well, maybe I got something here.”
Space Age Upgrade
Early versions of the grill, which sit in the Big Green Egg Museum, are different from today’s. Made of terracotta, those first models were fragile, especially at high searing temperatures. But even when they broke, “nobody ever asked for their money back,” Fisher says. “They just said, ‘Fix this, or give me a replacement. I love this thing.’”
But Fisher wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to go beyond low-temperature smoking. “They didn’t know they had a barbecue grill,” Arani says of the original models. Fisher’s true innovation was “seeing what it really was.” But to hit higher temps the grill needed a better housing, and so, in the mid-’90s, Fisher headed to Mexico.
EF: I’ve been very lucky throughout my career, and it was a stroke of luck that I came upon this factory in Mexico. They’re a very sophisticated company with a lot of brilliant people at the plant — PhDs walking around in white coats and devising different types of formulas for the clays.
So they knew about this NASA product [devised as a heat-resistant ceramic for use on space shuttles] and they said, “Well, maybe we can incorporate it.” They came up with a product that was not only very strong but had the same cooking qualities as the clay that the Japanese had used.
The Egg Hatches
The grill could now withstand any temperature a customer could throw at it, and it’d last long enough to be handed down to their children or grandchildren. Now Fisher just needed to get the word out.
Ardy Arani, CEO of Big Green Egg: And so now they start getting made out of ceramic and Ed is sitting here going, “Well, how's anybody gonna know that it’s better?”
EF: This was around the time I found out that Sears gave a lifetime warranty on certain items, like the Craftsman tools, refrigerators, a bunch of things.
AA: This was back in the day. Half your readers will go, “Sears? What’s a Sears?”
EF: So that’s where I got the idea. I figured that the grills were becoming pretty durable, but they could be broken. And, we found out that it was to our advantage if we replaced a broken part for somebody and honored that lifetime warranty. So rather than being a cost to us, I think it was important marketing.
AA: Don’t you think they called up a friend and said, “You know what, they gave me a brand new fire box, or they replaced such and such”? So that encouraged somebody else to feel like they wanted to have an Egg. That’s the art of our marketing.
EF: In the beginning we called it a kamado, which is a Japanese word that means oven or furnace. But it didn’t make sense to try to sell a kamado in a pachinko store. People would skip right over the ad.
It bothered me for a couple of years. And one day I figured we’ve got to do something about this. So in the store is a salesman from the Atlanta Constitution [now the Atlanta Journal-Constitution], who’s on a time schedule. He’s there to pick up an ad. In those days we used to dictate the ad while the salesman was there. So he says, “Well, are you ready?” And I said, “No, we’re gonna make some changes. We can’t go on like this.”
So I looked at what I had in the inventory. I said, “Well, it’s big. Let’s start with that.” What does it look like? “Well, it pretty much looks like an egg.” And there were various colors. I could have used any color at that time. Brown, green, red. I mean, it would’ve served the same purpose. But there was something about green that registered in my mind. Maybe because I wanted something outrageous. You know, there weren’t too many products being marketed in green. Green did not have a great association.
I thought it was outrageous enough. It’s going to catch somebody’s attention if they saw this ad. I said, “Let’s just call it the Big Green Egg and see what happens.” And that’s how it all started.
AA: That was another pivotal decision that today you’d make over six months with all kinds of consultants. It might’ve taken Ed six minutes. When he did that, he didn’t say to himself, “There it is. I’ve created a brand name that’s going to grow all over the world.” But that’s exactly what he did.
Steven Raichlen, author of The Barbecue Bible and host of Steven Raichlen’s Project Fire, among other programs: I don’t know whether Ed really had Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham consciously in mind, but I think it speaks to us on a subconscious level.
I mean, virtually everybody alive in America kind of grew up on that children’s book and there’s a certain silliness to it. The name is whimsical. You know “Primo” or “Kamado Joe,” they describe the functions. Big Green Egg evokes as much a feeling and a memory as a piece of cooking equipment.
A Little Respect
While Eggs were spreading around Atlanta, neighborhood to neighborhood, in an early instance of viral marketing, they were also getting the attention of professionals.
Kevin Rathbun, owner of Kevin Rathbun Steak and KR Steakbar, where he grills on Eggs daily: They were still over on Claremont Road, you know, small little shop. One day I just rolled in there and I had my shift pants and my shift gear on. And there was this older gentleman standing behind the counter. I was asking him about the Eggs. I told him that I’d eaten some steak off one a couple of nights prior.
He said, “Oh, you’re a chef.” I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Well, what are you driving?” I said, “I’m driving that Jeep out there.” He said, “Well pull it up.” He hooked me up with a Big Green Egg and said come back in about 30 days and tell me what you think of it.
So 30 days later I came back and I brought the Egg back with me. And Ed goes, “No, I didn’t want it back. You can keep the Egg. I just wanted to know what you thought of it.”
SR: It turns out that a surprising number of Michelin three-star chefs in Europe have Big Green Eggs in their kitchen. A few years ago, we got lunch at a restaurant called Osteria Francescana [twice named number one in William Reed Business Media’s annual “World’s 50 Best Restaurants”], and they knew who I was. At the end of the meal they called me into the kitchen, and there amid their, you know, million-dollar state-of-the-art kitchen, was a Big Green Egg.
It’s very rare in life that somebody [like Ed] introduces something revolutionary and new and never been seen before, and through a lot of creativity and mostly persistence and hard work, makes that invention become part of our culture, and in this case our culinary culture.
There’s an endearing quality about the Egg. There’s an emotional connection. If you say you’re going to grill, people will come to dinner and look forward to it. But if you say “I’m cooking on the Egg,” people will come over before dinner and just hang around the Egg. The mention of the Egg promises an experience and not just a meal.
Drawing a Crowd
It’ll be 25 years this fall since the first Eggtoberfest. What began as a semi-informal gathering of Eggheads who wanted to cook for one another and swap tips and techniques has grown into an annual tradition. Tickets for the official festival, where 3,000 fans sample food cooked by some 200 teams, sell out in minutes. Big Green Egg supplies the grills and charcoal, but cooks, who are competing for the People’s Choice award, purchase the food themselves and hand it out to other Eggheads.
The official festival isn’t the only one; dozens more, put on independently, are also happening across the US and in over 50 countries. It all started when, during the early days of the internet, a small number of people began using a message board to chat about the Egg.
AA: One day they’re talking on about their Eggs. And it turns out like 10 or 12 of them had one. And one of them says, let’s get together and meet up. We’re all in Atlanta. And so [in 1998] they met at an American Legion parking lot. I think it was about 20 of them.
SR: You know, there’s that sort of fanaticism and if you just think about Eggtoberfest, I mean, people are actually paying to come to Atlanta and to stand out in the hot sun to grill with all the smoke and sweat and everything around them.
Meathead, founder of AmazingRibs.com and author of Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling: People who own Eggs are like Hare Krishnas. This is not a derogatory statement. Please don’t make it sound that way. I mean, it’s incredible. They’re worse than University of Alabama fans, and I say that lovingly. This is not a normal group of people. They are fanatics, they are devoted, they love their device.
Backyard cooks start out on cheap, crappy metal devices, which they get at a hardware store, and they don’t cook all that well. Then somehow or other they stumble onto the Egg or they hear about it from a friend, and when they get it, it’s like, “Oh my God, this is so much better.” It’s like you’ve been driving a Volkswagen all your life and someone hands you the keys to a Porsche.
Paul Amisano, member of Eggtoberfest team Meet the Forkers: Eggtoberfest to me is just a gathering of Eggheads that all come together for the love of the Egg and the love of what they cook. When I go to an Eggtoberfest, it’s probably one of the greatest learning experiences I have annually. I mean, people are amazing on the Egg. What they can do, it’s just flat-out phenomenal.
EF: One of the things, even from the early sessions, is that a lot of people would drive from various parts of the country. Some of these distances were really far, but they did it. The distance, paying for the transportation, paying for the hotel, then going out and buying the food, cooking it, and then giving it away free. It’s incredible.
PA: Our favorite part, at least for our group, is just all of our team members getting together. You’re talking what, 25 to 35 people all together the night before. The sheer excitement of what you’re gonna do the next day, cooking all day and then serving it to people, that’s the best part for me. It’s going to sound corny, but you’re in a place where everybody is best friends and you don’t even know each other. You know what I mean?
A Cult Following
In 2024, the Big Green Egg will turn 50. For any company, this is a milestone, but for the Egg, it signals something else. The Egg isn’t protected IP. There are very few parts. It’s a low-tech grill that taunts competitors to come and try to take a piece of the ceramic pie. And notably, the company hasn’t expanded the offerings.
Sure, there are enough EGGcessories available to max out a credit card, including Bluetooth thermometers and new, high-tech options for controlling temperature remotely. But the Egg itself has stayed constant. Maybe you’ll notice an improved hinge or a new damper, rolled out quietly, but the Egg feels like a product stuck in time. Put simply, it feels unconcerned with the latest trend. And with a fanbase of Eggheads that do the marketing for you, why worry?
PA: Actually [the key to its success is] because of the same words that you just said: low tech. They haven’t tried to go overboard and put a bunch of junk on it. They’ve kept it at what it is.
AA: The process of developing an identity for a brand is such a difficult thing to do. If you look around at other brands, you know, why does Ferrari occupy that persona? A lot of people build cars that are fast. When you really want to make somebody feel great, why does everybody chip in and buy him a Rolex? You know, there are other watches that can tell time.
Maybe it’s because we’re still a relatively small club. If you look at the number of metal pellet grills or charcoal briquette grills or gas grills, all these things are being cranked out by the millions with stamping machines. We’re still an artisanal product.
EF: One thing that has been a constant for us in the first 50 years, and I think it will continue this way, is that this company has stayed close to the customer. We don’t have any engineers in an ivory tower — well, we have some of that, but that’s not where everything comes from. It’s not engineering minds deciding what we can do to make the Egg better. We use inputs from the customer.
In our earliest models, you’d put the food in and look at the clock and say, well it should be done in such and such minutes. Well, sometimes it was too much. Sometimes too little. A customer told us, “You know, I drilled a hole in it and I stuck a candy thermometer in there, and now I know the exact temperature.”
Well, we tried it and it worked, and now they all have thermometers. In fact, now they’re super thermometers compared to the candy thermometer we started with. This is just a small example. It’s still the case that we get our salespeople to ask questions, to find out from the customer what they like about it, what they use, what could be made better.
AA: It’s a lot of different things taken together. When somebody goes home and fires up a grill, they want to be in their happy place — the process of using it, the sharing what comes out of it. Our job is to not mess that up.
