Outdoor Kitchens: Cookin’ Up a Market

October 13, 2009

Part landscape feature and part entertainment venue, these custom spots frequently incorporate natural stone, whether it’s flagstones under foot or a veneer on the cabinet island.

And, of course, there’s a countertop. While granite isn’t the only option, it can provide another source of income for fabricators – if they’re willing to develop relationships with the contractors building these jobs.

PLENTY OF INTEREST

Not surprisingly, the outdoor kitchen market saw a lull last year, along with the rest of the economy. However, after the market started very slowly this spring, many of the people designing and building outdoor kitchens say it’s bouncing back.

Rick Fox of the Martinez, Calif.-based Straightline Imports is fairly typical. At mid-summer, he said his sales were about half of what they’d been in 2008.

“However, as the summer has moved on, we’re getting a lot more interest,” he says. “We’re getting a lot more people walking in and we’re getting a lot more phone calls. The interest is there.”

Fox attributes some of his decline in business to the fact that his product is very high-end.

John DiGioia, president of Elite Outdoor Kitchens, is located across the country in central Florida, and his clientele is more modest than Fox’s. He says he’s doing just as many proposals this year as last, but the value of the average job is down – probably about 25 percent.

“There’s obviously less money to spend, and credit cards aren’t being used anymore,” DiGioia observes. “I think the lack of available credit is putting a crunch on this particular home improvement.”

After spending what he calls a “very scary” winter with little design work, Thomas Earl, a partner in the Muskego, Wis.-based design/build firm Durham Hill Nurseries, says many people seemed to rearrange their priorities in April and May.

“I think they felt like they weren’t going to lose any more, and they became very realistic as to what they wanted and what they could afford,” he speculates. “Then, the calls started coming, and I’d say by the end of the year we’ll be very close to where we were last year, or just a little off.”

And, a pair of suppliers – Darryl Jones of Muskogee, Okla.-based Joneses Stonzes and Robert Smith of Greenville, S.C.-based Superlandscape Supply in Greenville, S.C. – say their markets are strong for outdoor kitchens.

“I’ve really noticed this year that more people are adding to their houses or backyards,” says Jones. “They’re putting their money in their backyards and their landscape – more than they did last year.”

“There’s probably less buying and selling of new homes,” says Smith. “People are updating, remodeling and refurbishing what they have.”

Smith adds that while many of the clients for these projects are in homes of 7,000+ ft², there’s also an increased interest from what he describes as middle-class homeowners, which probably explains Jones’ feeling that more are taking on at least part of the work as do-it-yourself projects.

SIMPLE ANSWERS

When it comes to interior kitchens, there are some pretty standard items that go into a successful project, and often the countertops are a star attraction. That isn’t necessarily the case when the kitchen moves outside.

Not only do fewer kitchen amenities move outdoors, but the centerpiece is most often associated with fire, such as a grill. However, when asked what he sees as the hottest item for his customers, Smith has a simple answer: fireplaces.

“Without a doubt, the fireplace is the focal point we’re seeing as far as the standard outdoor kitchen,” he says. “Everybody wants a grill and a refrigerator, but the element of fire is really the focal point, whether you’re talking an outdoor kitchen or an outdoor living space.”

He adds that once a contractor is in the door to install a fireplace, it becomes easy to add other items to a package.

“I’d say the combination we do most is a fireplace combined with a very nice grill and a work area,” says Dunham Hill’s Earl. “What we’ve been doing is designing the space so the person performing the cooking is more part of the show, and then there’s a cozy fireplace off to the side.”

For people who don’t want a fireplace but want some of the same ambiance – at less cost – fire pits are becoming a big item.

“Fire pits are becoming much more popular today because there are so many pre-manufactured ones where you buy the basic unit and build around it,” says Straightline’s Fox. “It’s not like the old days when you were running lines and piping and vents.”

Ross Johnson, vice president of sales for Burnsville, Minn.-based The Outdoor Great Room Co., which sells fire-pit kits, says it’s difficult to keep them in stock. He notes that a fire pit kit may cost as little as $600, compared with a fireplace kit, which may run $5,000 or more.

That’s not to say fireplace kits aren’t available, too. The landscape market is filled with kits for a number of amenities, and some even take it further. Burlington, Wis.-based Harmony Outdoor Living Inc., offers everything from fireplaces to grill islands to wood boxes that are built at the company’s plant, shipped to its dealers, and then delivered and installed onsite.

For contractors who expect to at least do finish work, the most-common kit is probably for a grill island.

“We have a bracket system we’ve developed that makes it easy to put the panels together,” says Joe Rider, president of Collinsville, Okla.-based Stone Age Mfg. Inc. “The contractor determines where all the equipment and appliances are going to go, then takes the saw and cuts it to fit. They’re still able to do a custom job with a pre-engineered product.”

“We’ve always had a standard 8’ island,” says Johnson. “Now, we’ve developed modules so you can create a 90° corner or a 45° corner.”

Depending on the job and the client, contractors may then opt to use these kits, or do a stick-built installation. A lot depends on the customer’s needs and budget, says Elite’s DiGioia.

“Basically, they want some counter space to the right and left sides of the grill, they want some basic refrigeration and they want some water,” he says. “Once you have those, it’s just a matter of creating a proper work triangle so you can utilize them in a smart, concise manner.”

“The sink isn’t as popular as the refrigerator,” observes Dunham Hill’s Earl. “The refrigerator is typically a smaller one where they can put some of the ingredients they might need for cooking. They just want to be able to bring their meats and things outside before the party and keep them cool.”

Sinks can cause problems because they really need to be plumbed into a property’s sewer system. And, some contractors say they’re seeing some clients opt to put high-end ice chests in their outdoor spaces rather than bring electricity to the outdoor kitchen site.

Other amenities vary by individual desire, region and budget. Among the more-popular items are some types of music or video systems. On the very high end, Earl says he was recently called on to build a fireplace that could also support a 40” flat-screen TV.

“Obviously, that was stick-built,” he says.

MIXED REVIEWS

Then there are the countertops. As with indoor kitchens, jobs are usually custom; the big difference is that granite isn’t necessarily the star of the show.

Other types of stone, concrete and even tile are part of the countertop mix with outdoor kitchens. Some of the stone being utilized for outside tops isn’t likely to ever see an indoor kitchen.

“We’re seeing more and more of what we consider the natural, native stone,” says Superlandscape Supply’s Smith. “What most people would use as far as natural flagstones is now going up top to the countertop. Quarriers are cutting to countertop dimensions and making that available.”

Smith is also the owner of Arrowhead Quarries, and earlier this year he cut a piece of Tennessee Apache bluestone that was then installed on a Stone Age island.

“We normally do flagstone countertops, 1” or 2” thick,” says Jones, who also operates Darryl Jones Masonry Inc. “I use flagstones from everywhere – not just Oklahoma. There’s a bluestone from North Carolina that everyone likes.

“Occasionally, we do granite, but not too often,” Jones adds. “It’s high-end, and it doesn’t always do too well out in the sun.”

On the other hand, Dale Profusek, a senior designer with Alexandria, Va.-based Campbell & Ferrara Outdoor Living®, a design/build firm, says that company tries to discourage its clients from using softer stones that are likely to stain, such as bluestone and limestone.

“Granite’s a popular countertop for us because you don’t see spotting with it,” he says. “A nice sealed and polished granite doesn’t require a lot of cleaning. It’s the same with soapstone; we’ve done a few installations with soapstone and it’s a nice product.”

Profusek says his company’s practice is to subcontract the countertop work out, and there are a number of granite dealers in the Washington area that supply Campbell & Ferrara with samples.

“Since the home business has slowed up considerably, they’re quite aggressive on this,” he says.

Another vote for granite comes from Straightline’s Fox – with two caveats. For end users, he cautions against going with the darker shades because in the sun it can get quite hot. And, for fabricators – something his company does – he says using 3cm slabs is critical.

“We have found, over the years, there just isn’t an epoxy made that’s going to tolerate the various temperature changes and the expansions and contractions an outdoor countertop is subject to,” Fox says. “Many times, laminations are falling apart after two or three years; with 3cm you have no laminations.”

Other outdoor kitchen contractors wish they’d had Profusek’s positive experiences subbing out the work. Dunham Hill’s Earl says he has invariably run into jobs that aren’t sized correctly, and no one is willing to take responsibility.

“It isn’t made exactly right, and then it seems to be no one’s fault,” he says. “The client is mad at you, you lose your credibility, and so does the fabricator.”

Earl isn’t alone in his complaints. Elite’s DiGioia says that during the last building boom it became virtually impossible to get granite fabricators to template and install the granite for an outdoor kitchen in less than a month, and besides badly templating jobs, installations would become nightmares of scratched and broken pieces.

“It can be a complicated process,” he says. “There can be more cutouts than with a regular kitchen. Pieces of grilling equipment can be very different, and the overall depth of the countertops can be up to 32”. We’d even have people coming in with precut granite from India and China, and it just didn’t work.”

DiGioia ended becoming a granite fabricator himself, and today he says a typical outdoor kitchen takes about three weeks – including installing the granite countertops. And, while he says even if he’d had better service from other fabricators he probably would have gotten into the fabrication business eventually. However, it’s made his work more-profitable, and lets him control his installation schedule.

“Plus, we currently have two huge indoor kitchens going on simultaneously,” he says. “A lot of times, that outdoor kitchen gets our foot in the door.”