The history of bqzeen

We have a friend in Africa who loves bbq. He has owed a restaurant for many years and cooks goat on a charcoal spit daily. However with the flash backs caused by fat falling on the charcoal the meat was being burnt. With this in mind we built a spit roast with the bins on the side. In 2001 my brother wanted a hog roast for his 50th birthday party, and we decided to use our home made spit roast. My brother was skeptical and argued that it was far too ambitious and that we did not know what we were doing!

In the week before the party, I phoned some friends and invited them to a spit roast but warned them that it would probably go wrong. And it did! I had bought the wrong type of charcoal and our lamb - that should have cooked in between 2-3 hours - took 6!!! However, we all had a thoroughly enjoyable time. This first experience proved to be invaluable. The following weekend we had over 100 people to cater for and managed to successfully cook for all of them.

We could not believe how brilliant the spit was. On many occasions afterwards (and generally after a few bottles of wine) we joked as to how we should supply the UK market with a version of the spit. However, when sober, we never did anything about it!

In June 2004, while at the Norfolk Show, we saw a gas-fired spit roast on sale for the princely sum of GB £4,500 + VAT. We could not believe how expensive they were for something that was so intrinsically simple. We immediately found our way to the Business Link Tent to explain our proposition and request help.

Exactly 12 months to the day later, and after 5 prototypes, we have the Eazy spit on sale. We hope you find it as much fun as we have - and equally as rewarding!