Mark Anderson and Ryan Fey, recognized collectively as Mark and Fey, or The Grill Dads, took their longtime friendship and elevated it to enterprise companions who cook dinner up a storm and train others as they go.
The as soon as promoting executives remodeled their love of grilling and cooking right into a profitable and fun-filled profession. Showing on “Man’s Large Mission,” a Meals Community collection created and hosted by famed chef Man Fieri, they took house a win and the prospect to create their very own Meals Community collection.
Embracing their roles as fathers, they launched “The Grill Dads,” however their cooking success isn’t stopping there, as they just lately expanded their model to incorporate a brand new cocktail line.
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Mark Anderson And Ryan Fey Began The Grill Dads As A ‘Enjoyable Facet Hustle’
The longtime mates, who’ve been cooking collectively for almost 30 years, mentioned they simply liked cooking and grilling. They’d typically cook dinner on weekends and have as much as 50 mates go over to only hang around and eat.
The 2 buddies labored collectively at an advert company, and felt it was “getting boring” and thought they had been shedding their “inventive outlet,” in order that they began to speak about doing The Grill Dads as a “enjoyable facet hustle.” It wasn’t lengthy after that the 2 discovered themselves on Man Fieri’s present.
“We received it, and we had our personal present on the Meals Community,” Anderson solely instructed The Blast. “It was three years within the strategy planning stage after which after we pulled the set off, we obtained to the Meals Community fairly fast.”
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The Grill Dads Elevated Their Model To Embrace A New Cocktail Line

Anderson and Fey determined to develop into cocktails after agreeing there is a “lack of a great possibility for a cocktail in a can.”
“For us, it is just like the delta between among the sh– that is already out there and going to the liquor retailer and shopping for an costly bottle of bourbon and making your individual drink,” Anderson mentioned. “The hole between these was so large, we’re like, there is a market there.”
They additional agreed that whereas being outdoors grilling, which they referred to as an “superior, primal expertise with hearth and meat,” they do not need to be chugging a beer. They would favor to get pleasure from a scrumptious ready-made cocktail, in order that they created their very own cocktail line – Grill’n Time.
At the moment, the cocktail line contains three flavors – Vodka Thyme, Tequila Smoke, and Whiskey Tea.
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“Our drinks had been made out of strategic knowledge factors,” Fey mentioned. “We’re advert guys so we perceive a shopper want or a need, and we apply that on to one thing that is lacking.”
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‘Grillin’ Time Is A Verb And A Noun’

Whereas they’re loving the three launched flavors, they’re already wanting ahead to including some extra to the lineup sooner or later.
“I believe one factor that we love about Grillin’ Time is it is a verb and a noun. So we’ve got this product that may be a bodily product, but it surely’s additionally a state of being. Like, Grillin’ Time is completely satisfied hour for lots of people, and we occur to have the ability to do Grillin’ Time seven days per week, twelve months a yr,” Anderson mentioned. “So in contrast to completely satisfied hour, which is reserved towards the top of the week, the one time you actually get a go to have a cocktail at your home or a beer is once you’re outdoors grilling, and it is a completely socially acceptable factor.”
The flavors are “culinary based mostly,” and the flavour profiles have “all hit the grill.”
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Coming Up With Recipe Concepts: ‘It is A Very Scientific Course of’
When requested how they give you new recipe concepts, Fey mentioned “it is a very scientific course of.”
“Mark calls me and he says, what the f— are we going to make as we speak?” he joked. “I want we had an excellent, wonderful system for the readers to be like, that is the way you do it. This is the truth although; Mark and I are various kinds of cooks. Mark’s a really technical cook dinner, and he’ll obsess over one thing till he will get it higher than he might ever order it in a restaurant or store or something and that is true. And 10 out of 10, he’ll get there. I am in all probability extra pulling on my Midwest roots.”
Each guys are “college students of world delicacies” and search for totally different locations that they’d have by no means gone to rising up. And all the pieces they make, they mentioned all of the components wanted to duplicate their recipes may be discovered at a grocery retailer. They present individuals “learn how to elevate on a regular basis cooking.”
Additionally they added that something you can also make indoors, you too can make outdoors on the grill with the additional benefit of “smoke, hearth, and excessive warmth.”
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Recommendation For Anybody Studying To Create Scrumptious Meals
For anybody who’s simply giving cooking or grilling a try to desires to good the craft, The Grill Dads mentioned, “be taught out of your failures.”
“Once I needed to discover ways to make an excellent steak, I cooked the identical steak from the identical butcher on the identical grill each Friday for 52 consecutive weeks,” Anderson mentioned. “And that is when, you understand, the primary one sucked, and tried to determine why. It took 10 steaks to determine why. And now I can do it with love and really feel with out pondering twice about it. So simply go on the market and do it.”
As for a will need to have ingredient, they each agreed that Kosher salt is one thing that must be in everybody’s kitchen. One thing that is overused – pre-made seasonings.
“Now that is going to sound loopy as a result of we promote pre-made seasonings, however there’s basically a problem with it,” Anderson mentioned. “The one factor you want to make protein that’s cooked anyplace – inside, outdoors, no matter – is an efficient high quality ingredient, correct method, and salt. Every little thing else is good to have.”
He defined that with pre-made seasonings, salt is the sixth or seventh ingredient, so you don’t have any approach of figuring out if you happen to’re correctly salting the protein, and it turns into a guessing recreation.
