Mark Anderson and Ryan Fey, known together as Mark and Fey, or The Grill Dads, took their longtime friendship and elevated it to business partners who cook up a storm and teach others as they go.
The once advertising executives transformed their love of grilling and cooking into a lucrative and fun-filled career. Appearing on “Guy’s Big Project,” a Food Network series created and hosted by famed chef Guy Fieri, they took home a win and the chance to create their own Food Network series.
Embracing their roles as fathers, they launched “The Grill Dads,” but their cooking success isn’t stopping there, as they recently expanded their brand to include a new cocktail line.
Mark Anderson And Ryan Fey Started The Grill Dads As A ‘Fun Side Hustle’
The longtime friends, who have been cooking together for nearly 30 years, said they just loved cooking and grilling. They would often cook on weekends and have up to 50 friends go over to just hang out and eat.
The two buddies worked together at an ad agency, and felt it was “getting boring” and thought they were losing their “creative outlet,” so they started to talk about doing The Grill Dads as a “fun side hustle.” It wasn’t long after that the two found themselves on Guy Fieri’s show.
“We won it, and we had our own show on the Food Network,” Anderson exclusively told The Blast. “It was three years in the planning stage and then when we pulled the trigger, we got to the Food Network pretty quick.”
The Grill Dads Elevated Their Brand To Include A New Cocktail Line
Anderson and Fey decided to expand into cocktails after agreeing there’s a “lack of a good option for a cocktail in a can.”
“For us, it’s like the delta between some of the sh– that’s already available and going to the liquor store and buying an expensive bottle of bourbon and making your own drink,” Anderson said. “The gap between those was so huge, we’re like, there’s a market there.”
They further agreed that while being outside grilling, which they called an “awesome, primal experience with fire and meat,” they don’t want to be chugging a beer. They would prefer to enjoy a delicious ready-made cocktail, so they created their own cocktail line – Grill’n Time.
Currently, the cocktail line includes three flavors – Vodka Thyme, Tequila Smoke, and Whiskey Tea.
“Our drinks were made out of strategic data points,” Fey said. “We’re ad guys so we understand a consumer need or a want, and we apply that directly to something that’s missing.”
‘Grillin’ Time Is A Verb And A Noun’
While they are loving the three released flavors, they are already looking forward to adding some more to the lineup in the future.
“I think one thing that we love about Grillin’ Time is it’s a verb and a noun. So we have this product that is a physical product, but it’s also a state of being. Like, Grillin’ Time is happy hour for a lot of people, and we happen to be able to do Grillin’ Time seven days a week, 365 days a year,” Anderson said. “So unlike happy hour, which is reserved toward the end of the week, the only time you really get a pass to have a cocktail at your house or a beer is when you’re outside grilling, and it’s a totally socially acceptable thing.”
The flavors are “culinary based,” and the flavor profiles have “all hit the grill.”
Coming Up With Recipe Ideas: ‘It’s A Very Scientific Process’
When asked how they come up with new recipe ideas, Fey said “it’s a very scientific process.”
“Mark calls me and he says, what the f— are we going to make today?” he joked. “I wish we had a great, amazing system for the readers to be like, this is how you do it. Here’s the reality though; Mark and I are different types of cooks. Mark’s a very technical cook, and he will obsess over something until he gets it better than he could ever order it in a restaurant or shop or anything and that’s true. And 10 out of 10, he’ll get there. I’m probably more pulling on my Midwest roots.”
Both guys are “students of world cuisine” and look for different places that they would have never gone to growing up. And everything they make, they said all the ingredients needed to duplicate their recipes can be found at a grocery store. They show people “how to elevate everyday cooking.”
They also added that anything you can make indoors, you can also make outside on the grill with the added benefit of “smoke, fire, and high heat.”
Advice For Anyone Learning To Create Delicious Meals
For anyone who’s just giving cooking or grilling a try and wants to perfect the craft, The Grill Dads said, “learn from your failures.”
“When I wanted to learn how to make a great steak, I cooked the same steak from the same butcher on the same grill every Friday for 52 consecutive weeks,” Anderson said. “And that’s when, you know, the first one sucked, and tried to figure out why. It took 10 steaks to figure out why. And now I can do it with love and feel without thinking twice about it. So just go out there and do it.”
As for a must have ingredient, they both agreed that Kosher salt is something that should be in everyone’s kitchen. Something that’s overused – pre-made seasonings.
“Now this is going to sound crazy because we sell pre-made seasonings, but there’s fundamentally an issue with it,” Anderson said. “The only thing you need to make protein that is cooked anywhere – inside, outside, whatever – is a good quality ingredient, proper technique, and salt. Everything else is nice to have.”
He explained that with pre-made seasonings, salt is the sixth or seventh ingredient, so you have no way of knowing if you’re properly salting the protein, and it becomes a guessing game.
Learn more about The Grill Dads and Grillin’ Time on their websites and follow them on Instagram.
