The history of Maiergrill

In order to continually delight our loyal regular customers with surprising experiences, we have invested heavily in a wide variety of themed events. From the Hollywood gala for the staff Christmas dinner in an elegant castle, the Western BBQ for the company anniversary in a marquee, the Latin American Gaucho Festival in the factory hall for the site inauguration, to the Frog Prince wedding in the castle hall, we create lasting memories of important moments in the lives of private individuals, companies and organisations. What remains the same is our reliability, individual advice and tailor-made solutions in combination with the unique and fascinating smoke-free Maiergrill. We are very grateful for the trust our customers have placed in us, often for decades, and at the same time this spurs us on to surpass ourselves at every event. 

We are a very popular catering partner for numerous event locations throughout Switzerland. This is also because we cater to the needs of event location operators and thus simplify collaboration for everyone. After all, we have built up a lot of experience since 2016, when we opened our first own event location. The fact that we were honoured with the Swiss Location Award for both of our event locations in 2024 is very motivating.

We have been organizing events from 20 to well over 1,000 guests throughout Switzerland since 1996. We have bundled our catering experience for large events under bigevent.ch and supplemented it with expertise in event technology, because the success of large events in particular follows its own demanding laws. The understanding of a holistic concept and the optimal integration of all service providers is crucial for this. For you as a customer, organizing an event with more than 300 guests with bigevent.ch will be fascinatingly easy and your guests will say after the event: It was simply fascinating.
www.bigevent.ch

Maiergrill AG becomes the catering partner of the Umweltarena in Spreitenbach for large events. With space for up to 4,000 guests, the Umweltarena is one of the largest event locations in the greater Zurich area. Only 4 minutes from the A1, 17 km from Zurich main station and soon with its own S-Bahn connection, the Umweltarena is very conveniently located. Our two concepts Maiergrill and wave.catering complement each other perfectly to offer our customers sustainable catering solutions for their event. 
www.umweltarena.ch

The jury of the Swiss Location Award has honored our Zehntenhaus event location at Elgg Castle in the wedding location category. The imposing vaulted cellar, the chestnut grove and the view of the 11th century castle make every event fascinating and unique.
www.zehntenhaus.com

In April 2020, we took over the operation of the Bistro at Technopark Winterthur. This also includes in-house catering for the 12 seminar rooms, which are perfect for conferences with up to 200 guests. At the same time, our passionate wave.catering chefs have been producing starters, side dishes and desserts for Maiergrill ever since. Wave.catering can also be booked throughout Switzerland with our sustainable Weckglas concept for both small and very large events.
www.wave.catering

Our Rote Trotte has made it into the top 20 most beautiful event locations at the Swiss Location Award. The lovingly renovated building fabric in combination with modern elements and the excellent location with city bus in front of the door and the A1 highway connection, which can be reached within 3 minutes, are arguments that convinced the jury.
www.rote-trotte.ch

In collaboration with mentalist Pad Alexander, we have launched a series of events in the Rote Trotte - our historic event location.
www.wintizauber.ch

Behind the scenes, we have scrutinized our event catering processes, revised them and consistently trimmed them for quality and efficiency, further increasing our performance for our customers.

For our 20th anniversary, we gave ourselves the gift of renovating and expanding the Rote Trotte as a premium event location. We put our heart and soul into running our first event location.
www.rote-trotte.ch

As customers regularly ask us for event location tips, we now publish over 50 event locations on our catering website with which we have had good experiences in cooperation and which are suitable for the unique and smoke-free Maiergrill catering concept.
Event location directory

Our new appearance is well received. The majority of our new customers have experienced us live at an event as a guest and have noticed that we have a special spirit that enables top performance and have placed their trust in us for their event. The fact that, despite 50% growth, 98% of our clients give us the feedback: "We are delighted" makes us proud of our team members at all levels, who are passionate about what they do!

After an intensive period of reflection, we reinvented ourselves and have since concentrated exclusively on event catering and rental of the Maiergrill. In future, we will only build barbecues for our own use. Our fascinating and unique event catering concept is now called 'Maiergrill Switzerland' and is accompanied by the distinctive M. in a round circle.
We stand for these values

In May, we moved into our new premises in Villars-sur-Glâne. Since then, our spacious warehouse and comfortable offices have enabled us to provide even better service to Suisse Romande.

On a 65m x 65m "meadow" in the 21m high Hall 1 of the Forum-Fribourg, our biggest winter barbecue party to date takes place in the middle of January at an outside temperature of minus 12 degrees. 16 Maiergrill grills produce the juicy and tender mixed grill skewers absolutely smoke-free and also heat the hall as a desirable side effect.

You can put together your Maiergrill rental solution in just a few steps. With recommendations on quantities and detailed information on each item, you can also benefit from our wealth of experience online. In addition to the Maiergrill, we also rent out tableware, table linen, furniture and decorative elements.

As the official catering partner of the igloo villages with their ice hotels and event igloos in Davos GR, Engelberg OW, Gstaad BE and Zermatt VS, we create BBQ on Ice - the combination of fire and ice in its craziest form. This unique form of event ranges from a friendly mixed-grill buffet to an exclusive 7-course meal.
www.iglu-dorf.com

On the occasion of a company anniversary, we treat 600 guests to a three-course meal from the Maiergrill.

For a national management conference with 400 participants, we were allowed to stage our original Maiergrill Spiessbuffet for lunch. After a meeting with the local fire department and a live demonstration to prove that our barbecue concept really is smoke-free, we were given the green light to barbecue à la minute in the anterooms of the famous Auditorium Stravinsky.
The smokeless Maiergrill

We start a cooperation with a renowned restaurant chain in London. After two years, our partner discontinues it due to a lack of profitability. What remains are valuable experiences that benefit our own event catering concept.

In the "Rote Trotte" in Winterthur - a listed building dating back to 1789 - we have found our new home in German-speaking Switzerland. Where wine used to be pressed, we now create unique and fascinating event catering. Just five minutes from the A1 highway exit Töss, we are easily accessible from anywhere.

At a large group event, the 400 participants will have their individual barbecue skewers assembled and grill them themselves. After 17 minutes, everyone has been served for the first time.

The Maiergrill Rondo was developed so that the advantages of the smoke-free Maiergrill concept can also be used at smaller events. Two people can comfortably carry the Rondo. This means it can also be used in event rooms that are only accessible via stairs.

At 20 locations throughout Switzerland, we welcome customers once a month for a lunch from the Maier grill in front of or inside the specialist market for craftsmen. During the eight months, a record-breaking 147 events were held.

We supervise a series of 5 workshops, each held over two days with 120 participants. The original Maiergrill Spiessbuffet promotes communication across departments and creates real added value compared to traditional catering concepts.

We are receiving more and more requests for event catering

«How nice it would be if every guest could put together their own barbecue skewer.» We quickly put this idea into practice and launched the Maiergrill skewer buffet XXL. This form of presentation has been an extremely successful variant of the Maiergrill concept ever since.

Together with Mövenpick, SV-Service, Bell AG and other established restaurateurs, we are launching various concepts with the Maiergrill. We try out everything from takeaway stands to exclusive grill skewers in gourmet restaurants, from trade fair catering to ski lodges. Everyone is enthusiastic, but none of these concepts are commercially viable and so we gradually learn that our Maiergrill is probably destined for something else.

The second Maiergrill series is produced and the appliances are sold and rented out for both long-term and short-term use. At the same time, we carry out our first event catering on a small scale with up to 60 guests and gain valuable experience.

Urs Maier founds a company together with his nephew, Andreas P. Maier, to commercialize his invention of the smokeless barbecue tower for kebabs.

It all started with charred barbecue skewers and burnt fingers at a village festival. The future inventor of the Maiergrill was once again annoyed by the acrid smoke in his nose and the sweat on his forehead. At that moment, he decided to rid the world of these shortcomings and build a machine. The very next year, the prototype of the Maiergrill was used productively for the first time at the aforementioned village festival with great success.