The Entrepreneurial DJ Duo: Grill and Groove

What started as cooking hot dogs for rent money has become Santa Barbara’s favorite food entertainment combination: Grill and Groove. Where there’s Grill and Groove, there’s a grill offering delectable burgers and hot dogs with a DJ busting it down on the deck, operated and managed by Katie Cioth and Emma Edmonson, the lesbian DJ duo LesBPM. Combining their years of service industry knowledge and creative ingenuity, Katie and Emma share how Grill and Groove grew from a humble side hustle to full-fledged business in just a year. 

Emma, interested in film, landed in Santa Barbara to pursue a writing degree at UCSB. “I’ve always wanted to be on SNL,” she tells me. But when COVID struck, she turned back to her roots: the service industry. Starting as a pizza waitress at just fourteen in Atlanta, Georgia, Emma’s southern hospitality runs deep. She’s the biggest social butterfly Katie’s met; guests from Emma’s tables at Sama Sama or Potek who spot her off work run up to her like an old friend.

It was in 2023 at Municipal Winemakers where Emma unknowingly got the ball rolling for Grill and Groove. She was booking music and food events for them when her bank account came calling. “I just needed to pay rent, like I needed $500 that day. So I sold hot dogs.” Through social media and word of mouth, people gathered around Muni’s picnic tables to enjoy Emma’s hot dogs and the summer sun. Come the next summer, Emma posted a cheeky story on her Instagram announcing the dogs were coming back: round two. 

Katie, “unemployed, having time to screw around,” saw Emma’s story and thought she’d stop by. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Santa Barbara was always the goal for Katie. Like Emma, she thrived in the service industry, tending budbars and Sushi by Scratch’s bar program in Montecito. Though the two had never formally kicked it, only knowing each other in passing through Santa Barbara’s club and lesbian scene, they instantly connected over their shared love for drum and bass music and women.

With Katie now in the fold, Emma was not done cooking on the Grill idea. “I’d always wanted to learn how to DJ, so I said, you know what? Let me teach myself.” While Emma began to put in her 10,000 hours on the deck, she enlisted Katie to station the dogs. “Katie is the only person I trust on the grill.” Their spontaneous collaboration was a massive hit. “That was our ‘oh shit’ moment,” Emma recounts. There was Grill, and there was Groove: thus, the Grill and Groove joint business venture began. 

A year later, Grill and Groove partners on a monthly basis with Mary Tattoos for flash tattoo events and weekly at High Seas Mead for trivia in the Funk Zone, serving an average of 80 customers at their events. Integral to Grill and Groove’s exponential success is its constant innovation: from its inception, the entrepreneurs ask themselves how they can diversify their product. It was in Costco that Katie asked Emma, “Instead of just hot dogs, what if we did smash burgers?” Now, it’s their top seller, with folks showing up to their events just for their burgers.

Occasionally, Katie and Emma are too slammed with feeding customers to cook up beats: that’s when it’s up to you to hop on deck. “Bring your flash drive, bring your mom,” they post, encouraging DJs of all levels to come out for their open deck sessions while Emma takes orders and Katie enters a flow state on the grill. Grill and Groove events have hosted local DJs like E. King and Soundlot, serving as a space for local artists and the community to connect over food and music. 

Grill and Groove, outside of serving mouthwatering beats and burgers, breathes authenticity and fun. While the two both love to operate the deck and grill, Katie leaves the social media responsibilities to Emma. On their social media page, you can follow the duo as they mob Costco for ingredients and film the logistics behind running a small business. Emma’s comedic chops shine as she pairs live action footage of the two creating their secret sauce with chaotic parallel scenes from SpongeBob SquarePants, hiding Grill and Groove’s secret formula, an homage to Gen-Z and Millennial internet humor. 

What keeps Grill and Groove alive is community. “Grill and Groove is heavily dependent on the community, and while we make bank doing corporate and private parties, we love being out and doing our pop-ups.” Katie says. Whether it’s together or separately, they both appreciate meeting fans who chat them up in the streets. “People at the Costco in Goleta have begun to recognize us as the Burger Girls,” Emma says. “Santa Barbara is such a great place to start a small business. I know some businesses leave for San Diego or Los Angeles to get into the market there, but I feel like we really tapped into a very special part of being in a small community.”

Check out Grill and Groove’s Instagram @grillandgr00ve for updates on their monthly partnerships. For private event inquiries, email [email protected]. Scan the Spotify Code above to check out a playlist packed with Katie and Emma’s favorite DJ artists.