My First Kota Experience!

Yes, I had a life BKG (Before Kota Grill) and have a different life AKG (After Kota Grill). I would like to share with you the story of my first Kota encounter and why I am even here writing this to you.

Over three years ago I was on yet another long business trip in northern Germany, facilitating this time on the subject of 'customer centricity'. Tiring stuff, especially doing everything in German!

Anyway, the hotel where I was staying had removed the summer beer-garden furniture I employed from my previous stay only two months before. It was a damp cold that November night but I was nevertheless keen to enjoy my small after-dinner cigar whilst nursing a Jever Pils and Waldhimbergeist Schnaeppsle. Looking for a dry place to sit, my senses were drawn to the smell of wood smoke and the flickering of light through the front door window of a most unusual, hexagonal tee-pee-like wooden hut sitting exactly where the tables had stood months before. It looked at first glance like a place made ready for a family of Hollywood gnomes to move into.

​Moving closer, I noticed a small sign on the door with the words Rauchen ist Gestattet!, (smoking is permitted!). Salvation at hand I opened the wooden door and stooped in. Inside was a wonderful, glowing wood fire! The logs and embers were burning safely inside a six-sided, raised metal grill smack in the middle of the hut. A giant metal hood and chimney vented the smoke up the centre through the top of the roof. And with benches against five of the six hut walls and a round wooden table that surrounded the grill, I sat down 'gobsmacked' and marvelling at this fabulous invention. Not only was this a place to enjoy my beer and cigar, but it offered me shelter from the cold, warmth from the fire, and a wonderful cozy space to converse with other people. OK, I was alone but still, there could not have been a better place to relax after a hard day of instruction. The experience was truly magical!

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