World wide weber — How a sacked Adelaide accountant put the kettle into Aussie backyards by wooing Weber from the American Midwest
Ross McDonald’s job switch and sales pitch started an Aussie barbecue revolution from Adelaide, writes Nathan Davies.
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Picture, if you can, a bongo van racing through Adelaide’s city streets in 1978 with smoke pouring out the windows.
No, it wasn’t a bunch of long-haired Dunstan-era hippies on their way to their one uni class that week. It was former accountant turned barbie evangelist Ross McDonald rushing a bunch of lit Weber kettles from demo to demo so he could spread the word on his new obsession – lid-down barbecuing.
While the brand name Weber has become synonymous with backyard in Australia, without Ross’s enthusiasm and belief there’s every likelihood that Weber would have remained a story told only in America’s Midwest.
Ross is the reason why Weber’s Australian HQ remains in Adelaide, and he’s a big part of the reason why we no longer think serving up a blackened mutton chop and an incinerated snag is good enough.
Sitting on the expansive deck at the newly opened rooftop Weber Grill Academy on Fullarton Rd, Ross’s son Michael says two things happened to change the course of his late father’s life – one, he found an old kettle barbecue in a second- hand junk store and, two, he got the sack.
“Dad was an avid backyard entertainer who worked as an accountant, but hated accounting,” Michael says.
“The thing he really loved was having people in his backyard and cooking for them. When Dad got sacked as an accountant he says that was the best thing that ever happened to him. He said, ‘This is the last time I’ll ever work in a job I don’t love’.
Intrigued by the junk-store barbie and the delicious food it was churning out, Ross decided that his future lay with the grill.
“It was barbecues or running a nursery,” Michael laughs. Thankfully for all of us he chose the former.
In the late seventies, Michael says, Aussie grilling was ruled by the flat-plate portable tripod. Chops and snags were the main fare, and any vegies with the possible exception of onions were frowned upon.
Ross set about looking into kettle barbecues and all roads led to Rome. Well, actually they led to Chicago, the home of Weber. Convincing Weber that there could be a market for their product was a different story though. They were running a hugely successful business supplying kettle barbecues to the Midwest and, Michael says, they’d “barely even heard of Australia”.
“He pestered the guys in the States,” Michael says.
“He sent them telexes, tried to get them on the phone. Eventually Dad gets a call that says, ‘George Stephen (inventor of the Weber Kettle) is in Sydney and he’d like to meet you for lunch”.
“Dad said ‘when’. They said ‘today’. Dad jumped on a plane and spent the best part of day eating and drinking with these guys and talking about barbecue, and a couple of weeks later they sent him a container of samples and that was it.”
Well, it wasn’t really it. Ross had a steady supply of kettles but he still needed to convince Australians that a charcoal-fired Weber was better than a gas-powered banger burner. Enter the bongo van.
“Yes, there was some pushback, but Dad convinced people by putting the food in people’s mouths,” Ross says.
“I can try to convince you all day long how good it is, but until you taste it you just won’t believe me.”
Ross and wife Joy would load the lit kettles into the little van with meat already roasting in them and, in the very early days, set up outside a friend’s jewellery store in Rundle Mall, handing out slices of meat. Then, once the department stores got interested, they’d load the lit kettles into the elevators of David Jones and Myers for rooftop demos. Hard to imagine that passing the HR department these days.
The hard work paid off, and by the mid- eighties if you actually wanted to impress your guests then you invited them around “for a Weber”.
Michael tells the story of his grandfather picking up the Trading Post every week during the early days of the business in Australia and phoning anyone who was trying to offload a Weber in the classifieds.
“He’d call them and say, ‘hey, is there something I can help you with?’, Michael says.
“Often people were struggling to keep them alight or something simple like that, so my grandfather and father would go to their house and help them.
“Dad would even do what we called ‘the first cook’ where he’d go out, deliver the barbecue, put it together for them and do the first meal at their home. Now, it didn’t take long for that to become impractical, but it’s an iconic story around here that talks to what we’re all about.”
The new Weber Grill Academy, with it’s sleek lines and views over the city, is a long way from bongo vans and jewellery store demos, as are the latest Webers. The Smokefire, for example, is a hop-fed wood pellet-fired barbecue that can be controlled by an app on your mobile phone. According to Michael, though, Ross’s original vision is still at the core of the business.
“What dad did in ‘78 when he started the business has absolutely changed the way we think about barbecuing,” Michael says.
“People love their Webers and we take that seriously. If you need a part for your 30-year-old kettle then we hold a whole bank of spare parts in Wingfield, and we can find you that part.”
Or they’ll help you download the app so you can fire up your new grill from work for an eight-hour low and slow. It’s all barbecuing, and it’s in the blood.
The Weber Grill Academy is offering classes to make sure you’re getting the most from your barbie. Book online.
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