How The Wild Oven Started. The Truth.

Sometimes the biggest leaps start with the smallest actions, a click, a spark, and the courage to say yes

No Plan, Just a Feeling

The Wild Oven did not start with a five-year plan.

It did not start with a pitch deck, a spreadsheet masterpiece or a neatly bound business plan.

Still no business plan, if we’re being honest.

It started at a kitchen table, hovering over a laptop, with that slightly sick feeling you get just before doing something you cannot easily undo.

Click. Buy now.

That was the first pivotal moment. Buying our first wood-fired oven and committing most of the savings I had built up over years of saying no to nights out, saying yes to sport, studying far too much at uni and working long summer days hauling the harvest in from the fields on the family farm.

Not recommended, by the way. It really is who you know, not what you know. Learn that early and save yourself some stress.

Reality Hits

When the oven arrived, reality kicked in. A wood-fired oven for event catering is not much use if it cannot go anywhere. James spent the winter months turning it into something vaguely roadworthy. Welding. Modifying. Problem-solving in a cold yard while I sat inside, cobbling together a website.

At the time, I was incredibly proud of that website. Looking back now, I genuinely cannot understand how anyone knew what on earth we were offering. It was clunky, unclear and wildly optimistic. But somehow, people got it.

We secured our first event.

First Event, First Lessons

I remember that drive like it was yesterday. Heading off down the road with the oven in tow, hearts pounding, spring sunshine breaking through, thinking this might actually work.

Then the trailer broke.

Properly broke. As in, not going anywhere, broken.

We were stuck. The oven was stuck. The couple were waiting. The food could not happen.

So we ordered in pizza.

The couple and their guests got fed, but they did not get the theatre. We learnt very quickly that food is only part of what we do. The atmosphere, the fire, the experience, that matters just as much.

We also learnt a very practical lesson. Always have the phone numbers of people who can tow you out of trouble.

That was the start of a pattern that has defined The Wild Oven ever since.

Winning or Learning

From that moment, our approach has been simple: Winning or learning.

There have been very few moments that were purely one or the other. Most sit somewhere in between. An event that went brilliantly but nearly unravelled at the last minute. A plan that did not work but led to a better one. A mistake that felt awful at the time and quietly became the reason something stronger was built later.

Somewhere along the line, I started reframing problems as solution opportunities.

Yes, I hate how that sounds. It makes me feel a bit sick in my mouth, too.

But it genuinely changed everything.

Instead of asking why this is happening to us, we started asking what this is trying to teach us. What system needs fixing? What needs simplifying? What would make this easier next time?

That mindset is baked into The Wild Oven now.

Our Values from Day One

We have never been about perfection. We have always been about showing up, lighting fires and figuring it out. About saying yes before we knew exactly how. About building something that felt alive rather than overly engineered.

The irony is that while it did not start with a business plan, it did start with values.

Make food that people remember.

Create moments, not just meals.

Treat people well, from clients to team.

Learn fast. Own mistakes. Keep moving.

Those things were there from the beginning, even if the rest was held together with hope, cable ties and borrowed trailers.

The Wild Oven exists because people trusted us before we really knew what we were doing. Because friends answered the phone when we were stranded. Because couples were kind when things went wrong. Because fire has a way of pulling people together, even when everything else feels uncertain.

It started with a click at a kitchen table.

It continues because we kept choosing to learn instead of quit.

And if you are wondering whether you need everything figured out before you begin, let this be your answer.

You do not.

You just need to be willing to commit, adapt and keep the fire lit.

Keep following our journey over on our socials – Insta & Tiktok