Bob Rogowski keeps building on his devotion to outdoor grilling.
For seven years, the Wedron resident has specialized in manufacturing and selling deluxe custom grills for individual and commercial use. His family-operated business, Wedron Grills, is an outgrowth of his machine and fabricating company, B R Machine Inc., located in his hometown.
Rogowski is a barbecue and cooking enthusiast whose fondness for outdoor grilling inspired him to build what he calls the ultimate barbecue grill. It reflects Rogowski’s mission to eschew the kitchen and prepare entire meals on the grill, including pasta dishes, chicken, steak or seafood with vegetables and delectable sauces.
“My wife and I love to cook. You can cook just about anything on our grills, and they are unlike any other grill available on the market,” because of the materials they’re made of and the way they’re constructed, Rogowski explained. “Years ago, a friend of mine in Ottawa bought a pretty deluxe grill, but there were a few things about the grill he didn’t like. I told him I’d make some changes for him, and then I decided to make one for myself. Things just started evolving from there.”
Rogowski, 50, worked in Ottawa as a welder at the Interlake Steel factory, manufacturer of heavy equipment for the packaging industry.
“When the Interlake Steel plant closed, I decided to be my own boss and open up B R Machine Inc., and the fun part now is that we just keep refining things as we go along,” Rogowski said, noting that the payroll includes his wife of 28 years, Nancy, and their sons Brad, of Mendota, and Tony, an Ottawa resident.
In addition to grills, B R Machine Inc. manufactures large welded objects such as cooling towers, barges and equipment for such companies as Caterpillar, Teledyne Pines and Owen K Wire.
B R Machine has been in operation for 18 years, and all the design work, manufacturing, assembly and sales for the grills and other products are done on the premises. The company sells nearly 50 grills annually.
Rogowski, the president of Wedron Grills as well as B R Machine, is involved in both the manufacturing and sales of all the products. Nancy’s responsibility is accounting and bookkeeping. Brad and Tony, both graduates of Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, joined the business after college.
Brad, 26, has a degree in aerospace engineering and is the product designer for Wedron Grills and B R Machine.
“Customers come in with blueprints, and I sit down with them, and together we come up with a design to meet their needs. Sometimes they just give me an idea of what they want, and we’ll make up full-size samples for them to take a look at,” said Brad of this admittedly costly way of doing business.
Tony, 23, uses his degree in graphic design as he oversees all advertising, including the web pages for the Internet. He also assists his father in sales.
“I like the diversity of working for Wedron Grills. One day I’m out doing sales, and the next day I could be welding or designing something on the computer,” Tony explained.
The Rogowskis also have an Internet Web site (www.wedrongrills.com), which has pulled in inquiries from points as distant as Guam, Cuba, France, Brazil and Turkey.
Wedron Grills range in price from $995 to $6,000. All are portable in one way or another: Club grills, suitable for patios or decks, are equipped with wheels, while the larger trailer grills are suitable for hitching. The company’s customer base is primarily small, independently owned groceries and catering companies.
“Most of these small grocers have a hard time competing with the big supermarket chains like Dominick’s and Jewel, so they found a neat way to draw customers into their stores by running specials featuring grilled chicken, ribs, hot dogs or steak,” Rogowski said. “One of the deals might feature a grilled steak sandwich with a Coke for $1. We (sell) the cooking appliance to do the job.”
The Super Value grocery in Wilmington bought a Wedron grill three years ago, and owner and manager Bill Dennis said the store fires it up from April to November each year. Dennis also lends it to community organizations for their outdoor cooking functions.
“It’s good public relations for us. It’s something different we use to get people into our store,” Dennis explained. “We hope that the customers will purchase the products they’ve eaten fresh off our grill.”
Another of Wedron Grills’ customers is Ottawa’s First Federal Savings Bank president Dick Farrell, who said his $3,000 grill helps build customer relationships. Each summer, Farrell and his wife, Sue, travel to First Federal’s 11 locations in surrounding towns with their Wedron grill in tow to host what Farrell refers to as “bratwurst banking.”
“We invite customers and new prospects to a bratwurst cookout in front of the bank and offer them great rates on CDs,” Farrell said. “We roll into town, set up our grill, hug the branch manager, give a pep talk to the bank employees and have a blast!”
Farrell estimated the technique brought him into contact with more than 5,000 customers last year.
Not all of Wedron Grills’ customers are businesses, and Tony said Wedron grills have become a status symbol for some affluent customers. For instance, one north suburban customer requested a hog roasting grill made of the more costly stainless steel (carbon steel is standard) so he could roast hogs in his back yard; it cost him $3,000.
Rogowski is confident his firm could supply a grill to accommodate the most unusual demands.
“Anything different, we can do it. If the customer wants wheels on top for some strange reason, we can do it. If it’s possible, we can do it,” Rogowski said.
The grills use propane gas, not charcoal, providing thermostatic control much like an oven. Custom amenities can include rotisseries large enough to accommodate a whole pig or three or four turkeys simultaneously. Custom additions have included a deep-fryer pan, numerous gas burners for pots and pans and “flippers” that allow the cook to turn 25 pieces of chicken at one time.
The Rogowskis can build a grilling surface that can cook a quantity of food for just about any number of people, they said. They manufactured a custom grill for a caterer in Iowa that boasted a grilling space of 4 by 12 feet as well as 10 gas burners, with a price tag of $3,500. To satisfy Iowa state law, the company had to supply a canopy for the grill “just in case a bird flew overhead and dropped something that might contaminate the food,” Rogowski explained.
Nancy Rogowski sews the canopies for several models and makes vinyl covers used to protect grills when not in use.
The business is located on a country road in rural Wedron, on the outskirts of Ottawa, and Bob Rogowski laughed when he said the small community is “a three-tavern town with a booming population of 200. If anyone ever heard of this town, it might be because it was home to a health resort that was popular in the ’30s and ’40s, but (the resort) doesn’t exist any longer. It burned down not too long ago.”
(On the wall in his office hangs a large framed photograph of St. Joe’s Health Resort with some of its members, including Al Capone.)
The husband-and-wife team still enjoy cooking and donate their talents as a silent-auction item in an annual fundraiser benefiting Marquette High School in Ottawa. The winning bid is usually around $3,000, they said, and the Rogowskis use their unique grill to prepare a feast for 25 people.
“This is such a good moneymaker for the organization, and we love doing it,” Nancy said. “We buy and prepare all the food, and the people just love it. They’ve asked us if we cater, but we just tell them no. We’re in the grill-making business.”
For more information on Wedron Grills, call 815-434-0427.
