Social Grilling® in America traces its origins to July 2014, when the future founders of ibbq encountered an unusual outdoor dining table at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival near London. The table, created by English designer Anthony Groves and offered by his company Cole Henley, incorporated three grills directly into a teak dining table, allowing people to cook and socialize together. One year later, Karim and Shahin Pirani acquired Cole Henley and launched ibbq, Inc. in California. ibbq subsequently reimagined the original concept for the American outdoor-living market, developed the Angara grill-table line, and established Social Grilling® as its name for the experience of cooking, dining and connecting around the same table. (ibbq, Inc)
The Discovery That Started It All
The story begins not in California, but on a rainy July morning in 2014 outside London.
Karim Pirani, his wife Shahin, and their then-12-year-old daughter Karina were visiting the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. The family had recently purchased an apartment in London’s Covent Garden and had hired a landscape architect to redesign its terrace. They were at the festival looking for ideas for their outdoor space.
Only a few hundred feet into the festival, Shahin noticed something unusual at a booth operated by an English company called Cole Henley.
It looked like an elegant outdoor dining table.
But it was something more.
Built into the teak surface were three grills, seamlessly integrated into the table itself.
The family had never seen anything like it.
The designer was Anthony Groves, the founder of Cole Henley.
The table immediately captured Shahin and Karina’s imagination. Karim was less enthusiastic about the price—approximately €7,500—but eventually agreed to purchase it on one condition: it had to be delivered and installed at their London terrace before friends arrived from San Diego that Saturday.
It was Wednesday.
Anthony Groves accepted the challenge.
By 8:00 a.m. Saturday morning, the table had arrived. By 9:00, it was installed.
That evening, the Pirani family gathered around it with their friends.
And the table came alive.
The Table They Couldn’t Forget
The experience was different from conventional outdoor grilling.
The grill wasn’t twenty feet away from the guests.
It wasn’t something one person stood over while everyone else sat around waiting.
The cooking happened at the table.
People could talk while food cooked. Guests could participate. Food could move directly from the grill to the plate. The person doing the cooking wasn’t separated from the gathering.
The table itself became the center of the social experience.
As Karim later described the realization, this wasn’t simply a piece of outdoor furniture. It was a catalyst for connection, conversation and shared memories.
That evening became the inspiration for what would eventually become Social Grilling®. (ibbq, Inc)
From an English Table to an American Vision
The family returned to California with more than memories of the London table.
They had discovered an entirely different way of thinking about outdoor dining.
The concept had clear connections to traditions such as Korean BBQ and Japanese yakiniku, where cooking takes place at the table and the meal becomes an active, communal experience.
But there was another possibility.
What if this kind of dining could become part of the American backyard?
What if the grill could become part of the dining table?
What if the person cooking never had to leave the conversation?
And what if an outdoor grill could be designed with the same attention to materials, craftsmanship and aesthetics as premium outdoor furniture?
Those questions would become the foundation for ibbq.
The Birth of ibbq
Exactly one year after discovering the table, in July 2015, Karim and Shahin acquired Anthony Groves’ company, Cole Henley, and launched ibbq, Inc. in California.
Operations and manufacturing were relocated to San Diego.
Groves, the English designer behind the original table, retained a small stake in the new company. (ibbq, Inc)
The objective was not simply to reproduce the table they had discovered in England.
The opportunity was to reimagine the concept for America.
In 2016, ibbq redesigned and upgraded the original concept.
In 2017, the company introduced the result to the American market as the Angara Maximus.
The English inspiration had become an American luxury outdoor-living product.
From Grill to Gathering Place
The Angara Maximus was designed around a simple idea: the grill should be part of the gathering rather than separate from it.
The table combined dining space with multiple independently controlled gas grills positioned within the center of the table.
People could sit around the cooking surface, participate in preparing the meal, and remain part of the conversation.
The experience was remarkably different from standing alone behind a conventional grill.
Instead of:
Grill → carry food to table → eat
the experience became:
Sit → Grill → Talk → Eat → Grill some more → Talk some more.
That distinction would become central to the philosophy of Social Grilling®.
Forbes: "A Device in a Class of Its Own"
The Angara Maximus quickly attracted attention outside the traditional barbecue industry.
In August 2017, Forbes contributor Larry Olmsted reviewed the Angara Maximus in his article, "Best BBQ Grills: This Backyard Stunner Will Make You The Envy Of Your Neighborhood."
Olmsted described the Angara Maximus as "a device in a class of its own" and explained that its appeal could be understood by anyone familiar with Korean barbecue restaurants or Japanese teppanyaki.
He described the table as an outdoor version of the interactive dining experience, with high-quality stainless-steel grills built directly into the table surface.
The important distinction was not simply that the Angara could cook food.
It was that the people around the table could become part of the cooking experience.
Forbes recognized something that had been central to the concept from the beginning: the table changed the relationship between the grill, the food and the people.
From the Angara Maximus to a New Category
The Angara Maximus established the concept at the luxury end of the market, but ibbq continued developing the category.
The company later introduced additional grill-table designs, including the Angara and Quadra, expanding the concept into different sizes, configurations and price points.
In 2022, Forbes returned to the category in Larry Olmsted’s article "Best Deluxe BBQ Grills And Smokers Of 2022 For The Backyard Grilling King."
This time, Forbes described ibbq as having "basically invented" the new category of table grills—tables with built-in grills—and compared the experience to a refined outdoor version of a cook-it-yourself Korean BBQ restaurant.
That distinction is important.
Korean BBQ did not originate with ibbq.
Nor did cooking at the table.
Those traditions existed long before ibbq.
What ibbq did was take the broader idea of interactive, communal cooking and develop it into a purpose-built category of luxury outdoor furniture and grilling tables designed for the American outdoor-living environment.
British Vogue and Angelina Jolie
The Angara Maximus eventually reached an even broader audience.
In 2021, British Vogue featured Angelina Jolie and her children enjoying a meal around an Angara Maximus at her California home.
Read the British Vogue feature
The image was significant because it illustrated exactly what the concept had been designed to create: people gathering around the table, cooking and eating together.
It wasn’t presented simply as a grill.
It was part of the home’s outdoor living environment.
The connection was subsequently noted by Forbes as well, which referenced the British Vogue photographs of Jolie with her children around the Angara Maximus. (Forbes)
Robb Report: "The Ultimate in Outdoor Entertaining"
The Angara Maximus also attracted recognition from Robb Report, a publication known for its coverage of luxury products, design and lifestyle.
Robb Report described the Angara Maximus as:
"The Ultimate in Outdoor Entertaining."
That description captures an important part of the evolution of the concept.
The product was no longer being viewed simply as a specialized barbecue.
It was being recognized as a piece of luxury outdoor furniture, entertainment infrastructure and cooking equipment—all integrated into one centerpiece.
Explore the Angara Maximus and its Robb Report recognition
The Malibu Times and "Grate Entertainment"
The concept also received attention from the local Southern California press.
The Malibu Times featured the Angara Maximus in an article about outdoor entertaining, highlighting the table’s ability to transform barbecue into a social experience.
Read the Malibu Times coverage
The coverage reflected something that had become increasingly apparent as the product found its audience in California: the Angara was not merely an alternative to a conventional grill.
It was an alternative to the way people traditionally organized an outdoor gathering.
The grill was no longer pushed to the edge of the patio.
It became the center of the party.
From Korean BBQ to American Outdoor Living
The connection between ibbq and Korean BBQ is important, but it needs to be understood correctly.
Korean BBQ is a culinary and cultural tradition with its own history, foods, customs and methods of communal dining.
At its heart is an interactive experience in which diners gather around a cooking surface, prepare food and share the meal together.
The ibbq concept draws inspiration from that broader tradition of interactive dining.
But instead of limiting the experience to a restaurant, ibbq brought the concept into the outdoor living environment.
That meant rethinking everything around it:
- the table itself
- the materials
- the grill system
- fuel storage
- weather resistance
- seating
- aesthetics
- scale
- outdoor entertaining
- and the relationship between cooking and conversation.
The result was something distinctly different from a conventional backyard grill.
A Different Kind of Barbecue
Traditional American grilling often places the grill and the dining table in two separate locations.
The cook stands at the grill.
Everyone else waits at the table.
The cook may eventually bring the food inside or carry it to the guests.
The Angara reversed that relationship.
The cooking surface became part of the table.
The diners became participants.
The person cooking could remain seated with everyone else.
And the meal could unfold progressively rather than arriving all at once.
This is one of the fundamental ideas behind Social Grilling®.
The Family Around the Grill
The concept also has a particularly powerful application for families.
Children naturally gravitate toward experiences in which they can participate.
A grill table gives them a front-row seat to the preparation of a meal and creates opportunities for conversation, curiosity and shared activity.
In a world increasingly dominated by smartphones, streaming, gaming and individual digital experiences, the physical act of gathering around a table provides something increasingly valuable:
a reason to put the phones down and participate in something together.
The grill becomes the shared activity.
The food becomes the common purpose.
And the table becomes the place where conversation happens.
The result isn’t simply dinner.
It is an experience shared by the entire family.
From Grate to Plate™
There is also something uniquely satisfying about the journey from From Grate to Plate™.
Food isn’t simply delivered to the table already finished.
Ingredients begin on the table as raw food and are transformed in front of everyone.
Guests watch.
Guests participate.
Guests cook.
And then everyone eats what they have created together.
That simple transition—from grate to plate—turns the meal itself into part of the entertainment.
The Evolution of Social Grilling®
Over time, ibbq gave this experience a name:
Social Grilling®.
The term describes more than a particular grill or table.
It describes an approach to gathering in which cooking, dining and social interaction happen together.
The grill becomes a social centerpiece.
The table becomes an interactive environment.
And cooking becomes something people do with one another, rather than something one person does for everyone else.
This is what distinguishes Social Grilling® from simply owning a better barbecue.
The objective isn’t only to cook better food.
It is to create a better gathering.
A Decade of Social Grilling®, Around the World
Karim and Shahin formed ibbq in July 2015 with the Cole Henley acquisition and formally incorporated ibbq, Inc. the following month, in August 2015. In the more than a decade since, the company has been designing and building Korean BBQ grill tables for the home—longer than any other company in the category. Tables bearing the Angara name are now in homes across Australia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, Germany, Mexico, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, carrying Social Grilling® from a single backyard in California to a genuinely global audience.
From Restaurant Inspiration to Outdoor Living
The journey from Korean BBQ and other interactive dining traditions to Social Grilling® is therefore not a story of replacing one tradition with another.
It is a story of evolution.
Korean BBQ demonstrated the power of cooking at the table.
The original Cole Henley table demonstrated how that idea could be incorporated into outdoor furniture.
The Pirani family’s experience in London demonstrated the social potential of the concept.
ibbq then took that experience to America, reimagined the product, refined the engineering and materials, and developed the concept for modern outdoor living.
The Angara became the centerpiece.
Social Grilling® became the name for the experience.
From London to America
The journey that began at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival in 2014 eventually became an American company, a family of grill tables and a new way of thinking about outdoor entertaining.
The original table was English.
The inspiration was connected to the broader tradition of communal and interactive cooking.
The opportunity was American.
And the experience became something of its own.
The story is therefore not that ibbq invented Korean BBQ.
It didn’t.
Nor did ibbq invent the idea of cooking at the table.
Instead, ibbq took inspiration from an existing tradition of interactive dining, encountered a remarkable expression of that idea in London, acquired the company behind the original table, and then reimagined the concept for American outdoor living.
Along the way, the company gave the experience a name:
Social Grilling®.
Today, the idea is simple:
Bring the cooking to the table. Bring the people together. Make the meal part of the experience.
That is the story of how Social Grilling® came to America.
