Coming up · date to be confirmed
The second Shashlyndos — closing the BBQ season
We opened the season with a barbecue and we will close it the same way: in September we are gathering a big crowd for the second Shashlyndos. The date, the venue and the fee are not fixed yet — but two previous outings in this series show exactly how it works.
What is known so far
The plan, as the community’s owner puts it, is short: gather a big crowd in September and close the barbecue season together — in the same style we opened it, generous, plentiful and delicious. That is everything that has been decided. There is no exact date, no venue and no fee yet. The September date on this event card is a marker for the month, not an appointed day: as soon as a real date exists, it will be updated right here.
We deliberately do not invent dates or addresses in advance — they are worked out in the community chat and reach the site from there. What we can honestly describe is what you would be signing up for: this series already has two completed outings, and the September one is planned along the same lines.
The barbecue is the format the community grew from
The first big outing took place on 31 May 2025: a weekend with an overnight stay at a campsite between Montpellier and Béziers, around eighty people including fifteen children, eleven cabins, and a mangal that was fired up several times a day. Back then the chat was called “Montpellier–Béziers Barbecue Crew” — it had been created for that very trip. Two days after the weekend, on 3 June 2025, the group was renamed “Vibe Montpellier”. “Yes, it all started with that one,” people wrote in the chat afterwards. The full story, including the honest mishaps, is on the 2025 barbecue-and-camping page.
How the 2026 season opened
On 24 May 2026 the community opened the summer season with Shashlyndos in the municipal Terrain Multisport park in Saint-Just, roughly forty minutes’ drive from Montpellier. By the organisers’ count, more than sixty adults and about fifteen children turned up. The meat was calculated at roughly one kilo raw per adult, half chicken and half lamb — around seventy kilos on the grill. An invited professional grill master marinated, cooked and served it; the organiser had shown his video in the chat in advance: “This is the wizard who will be grilling for us on 24 May.”
The fee was €25 per adult, free for children under 17. It covered meat and grilled vegetables, two servings of hot food, Armenian lavash, French baguette, charcoal, sauces and spices, and the cook’s work. Everything else came as a potluck: salads, platters, sweets and snacks — “a shared table, like at Maslenitsa”. A host ran the programme: games and relay races, live violin, a salsa masterclass, guitar singing and karaoke. Feedback poured into the chat straight from the field and all through the next day: “meat that literally melted in your mouth. Not a single piece was left.” Fifteen photos from that day are in the gallery on the Shashlyndos page.
Why the venue is named at the last moment
This is not suspense, it is a real constraint. In France you may grill over an open flame only in specifically authorised places, and after a season of wildfires such places are scarce. Before the 2025 trip the organiser phoned and wrote to at least fifteen campsites: almost all of them allow only a plancha, and even that for a surcharge of about €5 — that campsite was chosen precisely because a real mangal was permitted there. In spring 2026 the same constraint killed an April plan, and the season only opened once a municipal park with a legal barbecue spot had been found. So the order is always the same: first a place where grilling is legal, then the date, then the budget.
How the preparation usually runs
The mechanics of our barbecues repeat themselves, and they are simple. The date is chosen by a poll in the chat. A week before, attendance is confirmed — without that the meat cannot be ordered. The fee covers meat, charcoal and the cook; everything else arrives on the shared table. The organiser distributes people between cars and sets up separate groups for each ride; anyone working that day and arriving late gets a portion saved from the first serving. On site: a long shared table, music, and space where the children have something to do. That is exactly what is planned for September.
How to catch the announcement
The exact date, venue and amount will be announced in the chat — follow it there, and ask questions right away. If you want a feel for the atmosphere first, look through the chronicle of our meet-ups: besides barbecues there are hikes, beach days, catamarans, ice skating and board games. And how the community is organised, including why it all rests on volunteers, has its own page.