Most outdoor kitchens get designed backwards. Somebody sees an island with a grill, a side burner, a fridge and a run of granite, likes the look of it, and works out afterwards where it goes and what actually gets cooked on it. Two summers later the fridge is unplugged, the side burner has never been lit, and the whole family still eats at the table on the patio.
We build these in Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, Chamblee, Doraville and Peachtree Corners, and the ones that get used every week were designed from the cooking outwards. If you want fire rather than food, that is a different build and it is covered on our fire pit and fire feature page. Everything here is quoted after a free site visit.
Start from how you actually cook
The first question at the site visit is not how big the island should be. It is what you cooked outside last summer, and how often.
If the honest answer is burgers and chicken most Friday evenings for four people, you need a good grill, real counter beside it, a light overhead and somewhere to put a drink down. That is a compact build and it will get used two hundred times a year. If you smoke a brisket most months, host thirty people twice a summer and want to keep the cooking out of the house in August, that is a bigger and quite different layout, and the storage matters more than the appliances.
Both are good projects. What does not work is buying the second one when you cook like the first, because the extra length of counter is not free and it takes up the part of the yard the children were using.
Layout, which is the part people regret
Almost every complaint we hear about an existing outdoor kitchen comes down to layout rather than to the appliances in it.
Landing space. A grill needs clear counter on both sides, roughly a foot on one and rather more on the other, because everything that comes off the grill has to land somewhere immediately. An island with a grill dropped in the middle and eight inches of stone either side looks generous in a photograph and is unusable with a tray in your hands.
Where the cook stands. Decide early whether the cook faces the guests or faces the fence. Facing out is the reason most people wanted the kitchen in the first place, and it is worth losing a little counter for.
Traffic. Nobody should have to walk between the cook and the hot grill to reach the back door, the steps or the drinks. Sketching where people actually walk across the patio, before anything is set, is free and prevents the one problem that cannot be fixed later.
Seating. A standard counter sits at about three feet. A raised bar sits about half a foot higher and hides the working surface from guests, which some people want and others hate. Either way, seating needs about a foot of overhang for knees, and that overhang has to be supported properly rather than cantilevered off hope.
Appliances, and which ones earn their space
Built-in grills mostly run between about thirty and forty-two inches wide, and the jump from the smallest to the largest changes the whole island. Size the grill to the number of people you cook for on an ordinary evening, not to the two parties a year.
After the grill, in the order they actually get used around here: storage, then a sink, then a refrigerator, then everything else. Storage is the least exciting item on the list and the one that decides whether the kitchen gets used, because a build with nowhere for tools, foil, a bin and a bag of charcoal means you are still carrying everything out of the house.
A side burner is worth it if you genuinely boil or fry outside and dead weight if you do not. An outdoor refrigerator needs to be an outdoor-rated one, since a garage fridge will not hold temperature in a July heat and its warranty will not cover it. Ice makers and kegerators are lovely and they are the first two things clients tell us they would not buy again.
The one we always ask about is a smoker. If you smoke regularly, planning for it changes where the kitchen goes, because smoke drifts and it needs to drift away from the seating and away from your neighbour’s open window.
Countertops that survive a Georgia year
An outdoor counter takes direct sun, heavy rain, a run of hard freezes most winters, and grease. Materials that are perfectly good indoors fail quickly out here.
Granite is the traditional answer and it works. It handles heat and weather, and it needs sealing on a schedule rather than once. Bear in mind that a dark granite in full afternoon sun gets hot enough to be unpleasant to lean on.
Porcelain slab is the one we recommend most often now. It absorbs almost nothing, so freeze and thaw does not trouble it, and it holds its colour under UV better than most alternatives. It needs an experienced fabricator because it is unforgiving to cut.
Poured concrete suits some houses beautifully and it is honest about ageing. It will patina, it will pick up marks, and it needs a proper sealer maintained. If a stain would bother you, choose something else.
Tile is the one we steer people away from outdoors. The tile is usually fine. The grout joints are what fail, and they fail in the worst possible place, right where food is prepared.
Marble, limestone and most soft stone etch when anything acidic touches them, and outdoor cooking is full of acidic things. They look wonderful for one season.
Roofs, pergolas and the vent question
Putting a roof over the kitchen is what turns it from a summer thing into a year-round one, and around here the rain is the reason more often than the sun.
It also introduces the rule that gets ignored more than any other: a built-in gas grill under a solid ceiling needs proper ventilation, and the grill’s own manual sets the clearances to combustible material overhead. An open or louvered pergola is a different case from a solid roof, and the two are not interchangeable just because they look similar from the patio. We build to whatever the specific appliance requires and we would rather have that conversation at the design stage than after a hood has to be retrofitted into a finished ceiling.
A roof also changes the permit picture, changes how much rain lands on the patio and where it goes, and is worth coordinating with any lighting at the same time, because a covered kitchen needs light on the work surface and not just a general glow over the patio.
Power and water, and the bit about winter
Outdoor circuits are not indoor circuits. Receptacles out here have to be protected and have to sit behind covers rated to stay closed on a plug in the rain, and an outdoor refrigerator generally wants a circuit of its own rather than sharing with the lighting. Gas and electrical connections are pulled by licensed trades; we coordinate them and build so that they have room to work, which sounds obvious and is exactly what gets missed when an island is closed up before the trades arrive.
Water is the one worth thinking about hardest, because we do get hard freezes here most winters. A sink is a genuine convenience and it also means a supply line and a drain that both need to survive December. That means an accessible shut-off you will actually use, a way to drain the run, and drainage from the sink that goes somewhere sensible rather than under the slab. Plenty of clients decide, after hearing all that, that they would rather have more storage than a sink, and that is a perfectly good outcome from a site visit.
Can an outdoor kitchen be electric?
We are an all-electric landscaping company, so this comes up, and we are going to answer it honestly rather than sell you something.
A gas grill burns gas. There is no way around that and we are not going to pretend the kitchen we build for you is carbon-free because our mowers are. Most clients want a gas grill, gas grills are very good, and we build them properly.
That said, more of an outdoor kitchen can run on electricity than most people realise. Induction cooktops work well outside under cover, heat faster than a side burner, cool almost immediately, produce no combustion products under a roof, and are the safest surface on the whole island if you have young children. They want a dedicated circuit and cookware a magnet sticks to. Electric griddles and pellet cookers cover a lot of ground too, and a pellet cooker in particular is how a fair number of people smoke now.
The genuinely useful version of this conversation is not gas against electric. It is that a masonry kitchen built properly on a proper base lasts thirty years, and the greenest outdoor kitchen is the one nobody has to demolish and rebuild in eight. Solid construction, a countertop that suits the climate, and appliances you will actually use will do more for the footprint of this project than any single fuel choice.
Permits and what the city will care about
An island on an existing patio is usually the simplest case. It gets complicated in three predictable ways.
A roof or a solid structure over the kitchen is a building permit almost everywhere in this area. Gas and electrical runs are permitted through the licensed trades doing them. And the patio underneath, if it is new or being enlarged, brings in whatever the city says about hard surface and land disturbance, which varies sharply across a few miles: Dunwoody caps how much of a street-facing yard can be hard surface and counts gravel toward it, Peachtree Corners triggers a Land Development Permit at five thousand square feet of disturbance and requires the first inch of rainfall to stay on the property, and Chamblee wants a pre-screen before ground moves. The city-by-city detail sits on the pages for Dunwoody, Peachtree Corners and Chamblee, and if you are in Sandy Springs the wall, buffer and work-hour rules are set out on our Sandy Springs outdoor kitchens page.
We tell you which approvals are ours and which are yours, and if a neighbourhood architectural committee is involved, that is usually the longest lead time on the job.
What the build is like from your kitchen window
The day-to-day crew here runs battery equipment charged off a solar trailer, and that is real: no two-stroke exhaust, no engine idling through lunch, no generator running all afternoon to feed the tools.
Building an outdoor kitchen is still construction. Cutting stone is loud, and a plate compactor is loud, and that is true of every one of them whatever powers it. What we do is tell you which days those are, usually base preparation and cutting, and put that work in the middle of the day rather than spreading it across the week. If the patio it sits on is being built at the same time, that stage is covered on our paver patio page, and if the yard steps down and needs holding, on our retaining wall page.
The rest of it is quieter than people expect, and the finishing weeks, when the veneer and the counter go on, are close to silent.
Questions we get asked
Do I need a permit for an outdoor kitchen? The island itself on an existing patio is often the simplest part. A roof or solid structure over it is a building permit in every city we work in, gas and electrical runs are permitted through the licensed trades doing them, and a new or enlarged patio underneath brings in the local hard surface and land disturbance rules, which differ sharply between Dunwoody, Chamblee and Peachtree Corners. We confirm with your city before anything is ordered.
Can I put a grill under my covered porch or a pergola? Sometimes, and it depends on the specific grill and the specific ceiling. A built-in gas grill under a solid roof needs proper ventilation and has manufacturer clearances to combustible material overhead. An open or louvered pergola is a different situation from a solid roof, and they are not interchangeable. It is much cheaper to settle this in the design than to retrofit a hood into a finished ceiling.
What is the best countertop for outdoors in Georgia? Porcelain slab is our usual recommendation, because it absorbs almost nothing so freeze and thaw does not affect it and it holds colour under UV. Granite works well and needs sealing on a schedule, though dark granite gets hot in afternoon sun. Concrete is good if you accept that it patinas. We steer people away from tile, because the grout joints fail right where food is prepared, and away from marble and other soft stone, which etch on contact with anything acidic.
Will the plumbing freeze in winter? It can, and that is why a sink is a design decision rather than an add-on. If you want one, the run needs an accessible shut-off you will genuinely use, a way to drain the line before a hard freeze, and a waste route that goes somewhere sensible rather than under the slab. A number of clients hear that and decide they would rather have the storage, which is a perfectly sensible outcome.
Can an outdoor kitchen be all electric? More of one can be than people expect. Induction cooktops work well under cover, heat and cool faster than a side burner, produce no combustion products and are the safest surface on the island around children; they need a dedicated circuit and magnetic cookware. Electric griddles and pellet cookers cover most of the rest. But most people want a gas grill, gas grills are very good, and we are not going to claim the finished kitchen is emission-free because our mowers are.
Which appliances do people regret buying? In our experience, ice makers and kegerators, in that order, followed by a side burner in a kitchen where nobody boils anything outside. What almost nobody regrets is storage, and it is the thing most often cut from a build to make room for another appliance. If you are choosing between one more gadget and a proper set of drawers, take the drawers.
How big should the island be? Big enough for the grill plus real landing space on both sides, roughly a foot on one and more on the other, plus somewhere for the food waiting to go on and the food coming off. Beyond that, extra length is only worth buying if it is doing a job. We would rather design a compact kitchen you use every week than a long one that takes up the part of the yard the children were using.
Do you build the patio as well, or only the kitchen? Both, and it is usually better to do them together. The kitchen has to sit on something that will not move, and retrofitting an island onto a patio that was built on a thin base means dealing with the base twice. If the patio is already sound we will say so and build on it, and if it is not we would rather tell you at the site visit than after the veneer is on.
Where we work
Outdoor kitchens follow the patios, so we build most of ours where the back yards are flat enough to sit one comfortably. In Dunwoody, the 1970s Dunwoody Club Forest and Hidden Branches lots are generous enough that the kitchen and the seating do not have to compete for space. Sandy Springs often needs the grade sorted first, which is why that city has its own page. In Brookhaven the tree canopy decides where a roof can go long before the layout does, and in Chamblee and Doraville we are usually working around a 1950s or 1960s ranch where the back door and the kitchen window set the whole plan. Peachtree Corners adds a neighbourhood review on most streets.
Projects that start here often take in the patio, a fire feature, steps down from the house and planting to close the whole thing in.
Book a free site visit
Bring us the way you actually cook and we will design around it. We will walk the yard, look at the grade, the drainage, the sun in the afternoon and where people walk, and tell you honestly what a roof or a sink adds and whether it is worth it for you. Then you get a written scope and a number, with nothing attached to either.
Call (404) 369-0989 or book a site visit here. If you would rather hear from clients first, our reviews are here.