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our story
getting here has been quite a journey!
Co-founder Matt was lucky enough to be a racing driver in his teens and early twenties. Climbing as high as F3 and endurance racing in Porsches
Matt moved to the US to compete in NASCAR. But he lost all of his sponsorship at the start of the "credit crunch" in 2008
Matt travelled the Deep South following the races trying to find new sponsors and fell in love with American BBQ and fried chicken that was like nothing in the UK at the time
back in the UK, Matt never found that sponorship, got a rubbish job and hated his life... Fortunately, cooking filled the gap left by racing. Combining a love of American food with an engineering mindset, he started making traditional recipes with a nerdy/sciency spin on them
then got drunk one night and bought an ambulance on eBay
that became the BBQ Lab - a street food truck serving American style BBQ with a scientific twist on classic recipes
he put wings on the menu and a couple of months later, they won WingFest, crowned as the best Buffalo wings in London
that spawned the idea for Thunderbird Fried Chicken, which like BBQ Lab, took classic American recipes and put a spin on them. Launching in 2017 and growing to a group of 15 restaurants today
that's when Matt and Heidi met
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