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Here in the good ole USA, we spend an average of 67 minutes every day our kitchens. Preparing and cooking meals takes up 400 hours a year of your time… and when you’ve got a gorgeous day looking at you, I doubt you want to invest those 67 minutes inside when you could have been prepping and cooking in the fresh air.
Outdoor kitchens are all the rage these days, and with good reason. When you have an outdoor kitchen, you get a long list of benefits:
Here at Patio Heat and Shade we focus our work lives around making people happier in their outdoor spaces (patios, decks, verandas etc.), providing heat when there’s a chill, shade when the sun seems relentless, cooling in the dog days of summer, and all of the goodies you need to make an amazing outdoor kitchen.
Imagine your family having dinners while watching the sun pull its “now you see me, now you don’t” act over the western horizon. Imagine your best friends hanging out until the wee hours of the morning enjoying frosty beverages and telling tales (real or imagined) around your outdoor dining table. Imagine how amazing a rack of ribs tastes after hours of low-and-slow grilling.
We’ve put together some ideas to spark your imagination into overdrive. Look at each one and think of how it would work in your own back yard… how can you employ this idea to really kick your outdoor kitchen up a notch?
Let’s take a look at some of our favorite outdoor kitchen ideas…
When planning your outdoor kitchen, don’t forget that people will actually want to sit and eat the amazing meals you prepare for them. Even small spaces can be designed with a small dining area by extending a counter strategically to create additional seating. Another way to accomplish this is to make the depth of your cooking area deeper so that the additional counterspace can be used for seating.
PRO TIP: When building a pizza oven, be absolutely sure it’s at least 3’ from any structures.
Call our patio experts (you know them, the absolute best in the business) to get a little help on what size grill is best, how many access doors you may need and whether you can fit in a side burner… we’ve got the answers. Give us a call, we promise to treat you like family.
Nothing is as American as Pizza. Oh wait… hot dogs… apple pie… Okay, let’s go with “Americans love pizza.” Getting a pizza made absolutely perfectly for you is easiest when you make it yourself. Fresh, steaming hot pizza right out of the oven tastes amazing, and those aromas while cooking can kick your salivary glands into overdrive. Building an outdoor pizza oven can be done for as little as a few hundred dollars, or as much as a thousand while having one professionally installed can cost as much as $3,500.
Rain, dust and debris, not to mention those little bombs left by our flying friends, can be avoided by creating a permanent covering over your outdoor kitchen. Creating a high-quality outdoor kitchen isn’t cheap, and a permanent covering will help all of your materials to last longer. Huge bonuses include being able to comfortably use your outdoor kitchen in the rain or in blistering sunlight, and your outdoor kitchen will stay cleaner for longer.
Here’s an idea we can get behind… a wall. The owners built a wall to create a separation for their outdoor kitchen, as well as to house electrical and venting options for the kitchen area. Whether you’re using an existing exterior wall or building a new one, installing an amazing backsplash is a fantastic way to create a “wow” factor for your outdoor kitchen. Make sure you are using easily cleanable materials and you’re good-to-go.
Until I started writing this article, I hadn’t seen this before. If you’re building an outdoor kitchen with countertop seating, I love the idea of building a fire table as a part of it. This type of fire table doesn’t put out 3’ tall flames, so it’s perfect for an intimate get together while you put the finishing touches on tonight’s meal. Everyone loves gazing into a blazing fire, and having the ability to have a controlled fire at your dining table is a perfect upgrade to your outdoor kitchen.
This is about as small an outdoor kitchen as you can make… a beautiful built-in stainless-steel grill with small counterspace on either side is just barely functional. With the addition of the metal pergola, however, they have just added enough space to have outdoor seating and a small serving area. Genius use of a tiny space… give it a thought if your outdoor kitchen space is a little cramped.
When adding an outdoor kitchen to your home, consider wrapping a bar around the end to create both a natural seating area for guests as well as a built-in dining area. Let’s not forget the drinks! Create your own signature concoction (may we suggest something broccoli-infused?), pop the top on a cold one or uncork/twist the top off your best bottle of wine and let the good times flow. Your friends and family will love having you as the bartender with all the gossip and marvel at how you can keep the burgers flipped while topping off their icy drink.
When it beer and brats time at your house and you’ve invited a nice sized crew to enjoy the day, you’ve already got a handle on the “brats” side, but by adding a Cal Flame BBQ beer tap refrigerator you can serve frosty cold beers all day long. Imagine how handy it would be to have frosty-cold beer at the push of a tap, right in your own backyard! As a bonus, when there isn’t a party going on you can use the inside of the beer tap refrigerator as an extra outdoor fridge.
The easiest way to get a drop-dead-gorgeous outdoor kitchen in your own back yard is to buy one! The amazing Cal Flame L-Shaped luxury outdoor BBQ kitchen is built like a tank to last for years, starting with a fully welded 16-gauge galvanized steel frame for long lasting integrity. Add to that stainless steel appliances including fully operational (cold) sink, refrigerator for ice-cold beverages, side burner, and the P4 Cal Frame Grill and storage doors and you’ve got an outdoor chef’s delight, ready-to-go!
Outdoor kitchens really are a game changer – your next shindig will take on a whole new dimension with outdoor entertaining. The combination of cold beer and hot brats (the hotdog kind, not the ones trying to catch fireflies to do unspeakable things to them) is perfect on a warm summer night, and your outdoor kitchen will quickly become the place to be.
This is about as small an outdoor kitchen as you can make… a beautiful built-in stainless-steel grill with small counterspace on either side is just barely functional. With the addition of the metal pergola, however, they have just added enough space to have outdoor seating and a small serving area. Genius use of a tiny space… give it a thought if your outdoor kitchen space is a little cramped.
Hopefully, you’ve considered each of the outdoor kitchen ideas we’ve shown you and thought about how they would fit in with your outdoor plans. Perhaps a beer tap fridge would be great for you sometimes… but you wouldn’t need a keg around all that often. Knowing you can use that outdoor fridge to store food/drinks/condiments or whatever when a keg isn’t needed may sway your opinion on its usefulness.
Here at Patio Heat and Shade our goal is to get your butt outdoors – enjoy all that Mother Nature has to offer. If the weather is a little to cold or warm, we’ve got your back. If you would love to have people over for dinner outside, we can help you keep everyone comfy. And now that you’re ready to make your outdoor kitchen dreams a reality, we’ll be right there with you to help, every step of the way.