BBQs – one of our favourite past-times.
But at every event, there is always one person who ends up becoming the most anti-social character at the party.
As the BBQ begins, the pit would be surrounded by way too many ‘fire-starters’. But after the first few food batches, these cooks would gradually dwindle down to just a single person.
It’s not fun being the last one left – you end up missing out on much of the action.
So these 3 Singaporeans have come up with a genius solution – by bringing the chefs to you instead.
Unlike existing BBQ wholesale providers, on-demand BBQ startup Sunday Roast provides more premium services with 3 order types – a la carte, bundles and Omakase packages.
The a la carte is for customers who know exactly the types of meats they want.
For bundles, the trio offers themed packages such as German or Local packages. These group several meat selections together for ease of purchase.
The Omakase packages are the most popular, Ian reveals.
For the Japanese cuisine style, which means “I’ll leave it up to you” – the team’s chefs will select the meats. Based on the given budget, the team will source a variety of premium meats with the most bang for buck.
For Omakase, Sunday Roast also offers complimentary chef cooking services (value of $1,200 or more.) Otherwise, you can hire a chef at $200 for 3 hours, who will handle everything including set-up.
Sunday Roast chefs are people with experience as BBQ cooks, but the team is also actively training others. For assistants, the team hires part-timers balancing school alongside Sunday Roast events.
Roasting Up A Storm
“Singaporeans tend to order the same selections for BBQs because current providers lack a good range of premium meats online. For example, there are actually many types of beef that Singaporeans aren’t exposed to.”
“This prompted us to offer a premium BBQ service,” co-founder Ian says.
“We want to expose and educate Singaporeans on the difference between premium and the run-of-the-mill cuts.”
“We’ve been operating for about 2 months and so far, we’ve had around 6 events with great reviews,” he adds proudly.
Right now, the team is raking in a few thousand each month” he says, which they use to fund expansion.
“This re-investment helps us deliver more value to our customers and to move forward. The best memory for us so far was when our guests liked our food so much they asked to take home leftover meats.”
“It’s one of the best feelings when guests show appreciation of our food.”
Sunday Roasters Ian, Gerald And Xavier
Ian Lam is the marketing and customer relations guy, “to see how we can spread the word about our services and how we can better delight our customers”.
Xavier Chng is just an “awesome guy who excels in operations for events, training and smooth logistics flow,” Ian says. “And he’s an expert van driver.”
Ian is also co-founder of Cohesion Singapore, where they specialise in team building events.
“Most of what we know now is thanks to our years running large scale events for major companies [but] I also got to learn a lot from other seasoned entrepreneurs from SMU Eagles Inc.”
Finally, Gerald Sim handles an extremely important part – the food, where he controls preparation, and types of meats they bring in to make events extra special.
“Gerald was born into a family who dabbled in the meat business,” Ian says, as he reveals how his partner “grew up playing amongst pallets and freezers”.
“He followed his father to meat plants and slaughterhouses all over the world. This gave him a better appreciation of meat origins and sources, and he’s the most knowledgeable on ways to prepare them.”
Previous work experience at a New Zealand meat supplier also taught Gerald how supply chains work.
“Through this, we managed to secure partnerships for special meats at affordable prices.”
Tomorrow’s Roast
“Currently we’re trying to scale up on the number of events we can perform each week by training more chefs to properly support future demand.”
In addition, Gerald also expressed interest in having more varieties to their current offerings.
“We have also teamed up with Cohesion Singapore to offer corporates BundleQue packages which includes team building games and a BBQ session afterwards.”
Although Sunday Roast rates are still on the high side due to import costs, Ian shares his aspiration of educating “younger Singaporeans to appreciate our premium cuts.”
You can check out Sunday Roast’s website here as well as their Facebook page if you’re hungry for more.
Featured Image Credit: Ian of Sunday Roast
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