Grill Fest at Scheels in Iowa City

Recently our friends at Scheels Sporting Goods invited us to participate in Grill Fest, a smoking and grilling-focused sales promotion sponsored by Big Green Egg and Traeger.    The event allowed us to demonstrate our products to their shoppers in an outdoor cooking environment.  This proved to be a great opportunity to introduce FireBoard to a fresh crowd.

I was excited to attend for a couple of reasons.  First, I am fascinated by the Scheels as a company and how they operate.  We have written before about their “Universities” which is a series of week-long seminars that focus on a single department such as Bicycling, Hunting, and our favorite BBQ.   Any company that invests this heavily in its workforce has my attention, and I am eager to learn from them.  Second, once heard that the event took place in my old stomping grounds, I packed my car with the FireBoard and some schwag and headed for Iowa City!  Actually, the store was in Coralville, IA but I defer any questions about the store’s location to Scheels Corp.  🙂

The Scheels Team

The Scheels Team at Iowa City Ariel, Corbin, Nick, Kolby, and Ben just before the kick-off of Grill Fest this past Saturday

The staff at the Iowa City store was welcoming and hospitable.  Several of the employees I met had been working for Scheels for more than 5 years, one even had been with the same store for 14 years, working part-time through high school and college, now a full-timer! Not every retailer has such a dedicated workforce.   No doubt related to their education programs.  And it shows, step into Scheels and you will find engaged, knowledgeable, sales staff.

The event itself was great. As Grill Fest’s event planner Ariel White puts it “Grill Fest 2023 was a huge success but it wasn’t without the help of our vendor partners. It is truly amazing what these companies will do to help us.”

Grill Fest attendees enjoyed brats and course ground Italian sausage at the FireBoard demonstration area.

It didn’t hurt that the weather was nearly perfect: sunny 81, with no humidity and a gentle breeze.  Plus, I was in a shady tent grilling tasty sausage and discussing BBQ strategies with countless interested people.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday!

This beautiful Flare-up was captured by Scheels’ event coordinator Ariel White

FireBoard 2 Pro with Blower Drive and a pit temp set a 300ºF. The food probe was great for keeping an eye on when the Italian sausage would be ready to eat!

For my setup, I added a FireBoard 2 Pro with our 20 CFM Drive Blower to my loaner BGE.  After I got the coals going I set my pit temperature at 300ºF and kept a food probe handy for a large-scale Italian sausage from the infamous McGonigles Meat Market in Kansas City.  I also cooked brats that I would check with a Spark.

Sausage boats with cheese brats and Italian sausage were handed out by FireBoard at the 2023 Gril Fest at the Iowa City Scheels location.

A Brief Bike Tour of Iowa City

After the event, I took the opportunity to take a bike ride around Iowa City visiting some of my old favorite places and taking in all of the changes that had elapsed in my 23-year absence.

University of Iowa’s Visual Arts building is across Riverside Drive from the former art building and museum.

The new Hancher Auditorium, on the banks of the Iowa River.

Left: Iowa’s first state capitol building Right: UI’s Advanced Tech Lab building as designed by Frank Gehry.

At left the hotel wing of the Iowa Memorial Union.  Iowa City and the University of Iowa are charmingly intermingled with pleasing views along the Iowa River.