KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A metro man has a beef with whoever stole a barbecue pit and trailer donated to the American Royal.
“I got a call from American Royal to see if they could borrow a cooker because their unit has come up missing,” said BBQ pit manufacturer Ed Maurin, who donated the trailer to the American Royal almost four years ago.
“It`s a 16-foot trailer. It`s a lot bigger cooker, something similar to this right here, but it`s about twice the size (of) a 750-pound rotisserie smoker oven,” Maurin said. “We donated it to them to be able to do projects, simply like this contest coming up.”
The American Royal is planning for its sauce and rub contests, and organizers were doing some test cooking for those events when they noticed the missing equipment.
“It`s very distinct. It`s all stainless steel, and it`s a pellet-fired unit. There`s probably less than a few thousand of them even in the country,” Maurin said.
He said it was stolen in the last three or four days. They filed a police report and are reviewing the footage from the multiple cameras around the complex.
“Being the BBQ Hall of Fame down here and the World Series of BBQ, the unit gets used for the association quite a bit,” Maurin said. “It will definitely put a hurt to things not having that cooker on hand.”
Maurin said the unit is worth almost $25,000 and hard to miss.
“Definitely sad that it`s come up missing, but it`s very unique, and I think somebody out there will spot it,” Maurin said. “It`s not gonna pop up someplace or somebody will need repair work done on it. That serial number is going to follow that unit forever.”
A spokesman for the American Royal asks if you have any information or see the trailer to call the TIPS Hotline or police.