Nearly five years ago, the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee huddled around campfires with family, friends, and troop leaders to break the world record for the most s’mores made simultaneously. Eight hundred and one sticky smiling faces later, the troops celebrated their victory, forever to be preserved in the Guinness Book of World Records. But Grapevine’s Solo Stove has set its sights on burning their dreams.
Despite temperatures projected to be over 100 degrees outside, on July 22 the smokeless firepit company will host a “record breaking roast” at Chicken N Pickle for the most s’mores made simultaneously. It may sound like a sticky situation—heck, with the heat, you might be roasted yourself. But Solo Stove is promising finger foods, drinks, games, and a Dallas Mavericks player. After all, who wouldn’t like to get a little sweaty over a fire and sandwiched between a couple of Mavs making s’mores?
The grand idea started in 2021 when Solo Stove applied for the permit to beat the world record. “Obviously s’mores are important for us,” says Tyler DiGiovanni, Solo Stove’s director of partnerships. “We put a lot of s’mores through our fire pits and so do our customers. We want to officially put our name in the record book next to s’mores.”
To make the attempt, Solo Stove will fly out and lodge an official adjudicator from Guinness World Records. However, beating the record is much more complicated than a bunch of people making s’mores. Solo Stove will set up 500 Mesa table-top stoves across 25 areas at Chicken N Pickle. There will be three people per stove, and one volunteer judge per 50 people. The judges will not be counting everyone who correctly makes their s’more, but rather everyone who incorrectly makes their s’more.
“Maybe they didn’t eat their entire s’more, maybe they had to have help making their s’more. That’s the thing I didn’t know about this,” DiGiovanni says. “You could still break the record in terms of overall [numbers], but if more than 10 percent of the total people who are there fail to do it in that attempt, it’s actually considered a failure.”
How one makes a s’more can get personal—some lightly toast it on the tippy top of the flames, while pyromaniacs enjoy setting their mallows ablaze. But, according to Guinness (not the beer, but the records, even though they both originate from the same people), there is only one right way to make a s’more. According to their original rules, marshmallows had to roast for 10 seconds exactly, before they’re stacked with chocolate, smushed between two graham crackers, and completely eaten. “Ten seconds wasn’t really a lot of time to make a s’more, so I talked to the adjudicator, and I guess he went back to—I don’t know what people call it—the Jedi council of Guinness World Records, and he was able to get them to bump it up to 20,” DiGiovanni says.
The event will happen three weeks before National S’mores Day on August 10. All attendees must be 12 years or older to avoid any failures, leaving us to wonder how the tiny Tennessee Girl Scouts did it. Solo Stove plans to acknowledge their feat, though, in its own attempt. “I would feel bad taking it from them, so we’re actually inviting the girl scouts from Grand Prairie to be there in attendance to help us break the record,” DiGiovanni says.
Tickets are limited to the public, but available with the code DMAGVIP.
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