Going small appears to be helping Lynx Grills Inc. get big.

In March, just as the summer grilling season was about to get under way, the Commerce manufacturer of high-end outdoor kitchens and grilling equipment launched a line of middle-market barbeques. Its Sedona line proved to be an immediate success, helping feed record sales in each month since it was introduced.

To keep up with the demand generated by Sedona, Lynx will relocate to Downey in October, having signed a lease for nearly twice the 78,000 square feet at its present facility. In addition, said Chief Executive Jim Buch, the company will double its payroll to 400 once the move is made.

“We planned for one level of production and we ended up with orders about 400 percent more,” said Buch. “We never introduced a product in the history of the company that has had this kind of explosive launch.”

While the Sedona products are priced well below Lynx premium outdoor kitchens, which run from $25,000 to $100,000, they’re still designed for the serious outdoor chef.

“The fact that you can stretch here to purchase a Lynx product without necessarily needing a home equity loan is big,” Buch said of the new line, which retails from $1,900 to $8,600 for a prefabricated grill island.

“Lynx has a very positive reputation in the industry,” said Don Johnson, director of market research at industry group Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, “a reputation of producing high-quality, upper-end grills.”

Lynx developed its Sedona line with younger and less affluent customers in mind.

Buch, who joined Lynx last year after consulting for several years, had been chief executive of Irvine’s 3 Day Blinds Corp., said that to afford a full premium outdoor kitchen, customers usually take out a second mortgage or a home equity loan. The Sedona, he said, limits that financial stretch.

“I would say that it’s for upper middle class,” said Long Trinh, store manager at Universal Appliance and Kitchen Center’s Studio City location. “They can spend money on a full outdoor kitchen, but this is quite comfortable for them.”

Trinh estimated that 30 percent to 40 percent of his customers fall into the market for outdoor kitchens and grills in the Sedona price range, while just 5 percent could afford the top-of-the-line Lynx.

Moving outdoors

Lynx was formed more than 30 years ago as Beverage Equipment Co. of America, a manufacturer of sinks, cutting tables and bar equipment for restaurants. After introducing a line of stainless grills in 1994, sales took off. The company decided to focus on manufacturing stainless grills for home use and ended all its commercial businesses in 1996, transforming into Lynx Grills.

The company was purchased in 2006 by Century Park Capital Partners LLC, an El Segundo private equity firm.

The company decided to make a change early last year as the economy was slowly emerging from the downturn. Guy G. Zaczepinski, a partner at Century Park, said that the company had to prepare itself for growth.

After conducting market research and bringing on Buch, Lynx decided to diversify its high-end offerings. It now designs and manufactures grills, access doors, side burners, cocktail stations and prefabricated grill islands. It sells its Lynx Professional Grills and Sedona by Lynx lines through authorized large dealers, such as Home Depot, and smaller ones, such as Armand’s Discount in Culver City and Universal Appliance and Kitchen Center.

Lynx won’t release revenue figures, but Buch said sales were less than $50 million a year.

The impact of the Sedona line has been immediate, however.

Buch said the company had to adopt a three-shift schedule instead of regular hours to keep up with orders. Of its 200 employees, 150 work in the factory. The plan is to double the number of factory workers in one year, but finding them might prove to be a challenge.

With no other local industries employing workers with the particular skill set needed to build barbeque grills, Buch said Lynx would be hiring from the ranks of those with metal work, assembling and fabrication experience from any industry. Its training program could take four to six months.

Much of the new employees’ time might be spent on the $8,600 Sedona grill island, which he said has been leading the new lines sales.

Most grill islands have to be either custom-made, or prefabricated and shipped to a customer’s backyard as finished sets. Buch said the Sedona grill island was designed to be shipped and assembled by the customer.

The appeal, he said, is that the lower-price line is aspirational.

That was echoed by Karrel Burgess, a salesman at Armand’s Discount.

“Everybody is looking for a better-priced unit, cheaper,” he said. “It’s like Mercedes came up with a lower-end Mercedes and BMW came up with a lower-end BMW; same thing.”

Brock Lorentzen, owner of L.A. Custom Grill Islands, a Pasadena company that builds custom grill islands, said he has seen a trend of high-end brands developing less expensive products, adjusting to the market reality that people are less willing to spend big money on grills.

Apart from new products, Lynx also added a new marketing strategy: speak to women. It hired a female chef for the promotion of Sedona, a product line described as “mom friendly.”

“The industry thinks grilling is a guy thing,” Buch said, “but we found that she has a big voice in the decision.”