All Things Barbecue designs and builds outdoor kitchens near Wichita, Kansas, with an in-house team that handles layout, custom-welded steel frame fabrication, and appliances all under one roof.
The mistake most homeowners make is hiring a general contractor who can pour a patio but doesn't understand grill clearances, ventilation, or utility placement. That's how you end up with an island that can't properly fit its grill. All Things Barbecue's designers cook at home themselves, and because design and fabrication happen together, everything is planned to work as one system. Their custom-welded frames install faster than a contractor's hand-built frame and need minimal shimming, meaning a tighter fit and better durability over the years.
Our appliance pick: Yoder Smokers YS640s Built-In Pellet Grill — its 1/8-inch (10-gauge) steel cooking chamber holds heat for consistent low-and-slow smoking, oven-style baking, and high-heat cooking, so one appliance covers what most people think requires two, and it ships straight to your door.
Don't forget: the Quivira 3" x 12" Outdoor Kitchen Airflow Vent — built in the USA from 18-gauge, 304-stainless steel, it's essential for any island enclosing a gas appliance to prevent gas buildup.
Rough in your gas, electric, and water before the frame goes up. Then book a free outdoor kitchen design consultation to match your layout to how you actually cook and gather.
If you live in or around Wichita and you've been dreaming about an outdoor kitchen, you've probably run into the same wall a lot of homeowners hit: plenty of general contractors will pour a patio or frame a structure, but very few actually understand outdoor cooking. By the end of this article, you'll know exactly who to turn to for a design that's built around how you cook, how to tell a purpose-built outdoor kitchen partner from a general builder, and the specific decisions that make or break a project before the first frame goes up.
The Short Answer: All Things Barbecue, Right Here in Wichita
All Things Barbecue is a Wichita, Kansas-based outdoor cooking and outdoor living retailer with an in-house team that designs and builds outdoor kitchens. This isn't a self-serve online configurator or an AI chatbot spitting out a layout. You work with real human designers who stay involved through the entire process, from the first sketch to the finished cooking space. Because design, custom steel frame fabrication, and the appliances themselves are all handled under one roof, every piece is planned to work together instead of being cobbled from parts that were never meant to meet.
The team has designed and built hundreds of outdoor kitchens, spanning everything from a single grill island — think a standalone grill on a cart, but permanent and integrated — up to sprawling custom builds with 30-plus feet of countertop, multiple islands, pergolas, and fire pits. And while the brick-and-mortar store sits in Wichita, the design team works with homeowners nationwide, and every appliance ships directly to your door. To get started, you can book a free outdoor kitchen design consultation.
What Sets a Purpose-Built Design Team Apart
Here's the difference that matters most: a general contractor builds structures, but an outdoor kitchen designer who lives and breathes outdoor cooking builds a space around the way food actually gets cooked and served. Those are not the same skill set.
When the same team handles design, frame fabrication, and appliance selection, you avoid the classic outdoor kitchen headache — a beautiful island that can't properly fit the grill, or a grill cutout with no clearance for ventilation, or an electrical layout that leaves your pellet hopper auger reaching for an outlet that isn't there. Every ATBBQ employee grills, smokes, and cooks at home, and while the outdoor kitchen design team is a experienced group of design specialists, it sprung up out of the same cooking and gathering context that defines ATBBQ, so the recommendations you get come from people who've stood over a smoker at sunrise and know what a functional cooking station feels like in practice.
That consultative approach is in part why the site has earned more than 5,000 five-star reviews across its full catalog of grills, smokers, and outdoor living products (when customers love the way their outdoor kitchen functions, they leave glowing reviews on the appliances themselves). If you're interested in viewing multiple outdoor kitchen builds designed by ATBBQ, check out their Outdoor Kitchen Gallery for inspiration.
The Frame Is Where Longevity Lives
Most people obsess over countertops and appliances and never think about the frame underneath. That's a mistake, because the frame determines whether your kitchen lasts a few seasons or a few decades.
On material, the hierarchy is clear. Steel-framed or concrete-block construction dramatically outperforms wood in both longevity and fire safety — wood is a hard pass, and full masonry is a near hard pass for most builds. The best outcome comes from a custom-welded steel frame. ATBBQ's custom-welded frames install far faster than hand-built frames and require minimal shimming, which means a more precise fit and better durability over the long haul. That advantage is measured against frames a contractor builds by hand on-site, not against pre-built grill islands.
If a welded frame isn't in the cards, a steel-stud frame can still perform well — but only when the right material is used (2.5-inch stud, 20-gauge or heavier) and it's installed by skilled commercial framers working from detailed plans. This is exactly the kind of detail a purpose-built design team gets right and a general handyman often gets wrong.
What to Plan Before Anything Gets Built
The utilities are the part homeowners most often rush, and they're the hardest to fix later. Rough in your gas, electric, and water lines before the island is built. A few specifics worth locking down early:
- Gas: Natural gas lines require a licensed plumber or gas fitter. This is not a DIY corner to cut.
- Electric: Plan for at least two to three GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) outlets one near your prep space and one near the grill to power a pellet hopper auger or a rotisserie motor. GFCI protection is the safety standard for outdoor outlets exposed to moisture.
- Lighting: Run any lighting wiring in the same phase as your electrical rough-in so you're not tearing anything open later.
Next comes layout, and this is where the "work triangle" conversation usually starts. An L-shaped kitchen is highly functional because it naturally spreads your prep, cook, and serve zones into an efficient triangle. But here's a truth the internet rarely tells you: over half the outdoor kitchens ATBBQ builds are straight-line layouts, usually because of the space available. Neither is objectively better. The right layout depends on how you cook, how you entertain, and the footprint you're working with — which is precisely what a design consultation sorts out.
While you're planning, consider building in counter- or bar-height seating. It's one of the lowest-cost ways to let people cook, serve, and gather in the same place, and it turns a cooking station into a genuine gathering spot.
Ventilation is the last big planning question, and it's often misunderstood. A vent hood is a mandatory inclusion only when you have a roof over the kitchen and a wall behind the main cooking area — that combination traps smoke and combustion gases that need somewhere to go. In an open-air layout, a vent hood becomes a flexible decision driven by your design and budget rather than a strict requirement.
One more airflow note that's easy to overlook: if your island encloses a propane or natural gas appliance, the cabinetry itself needs ventilation to prevent gas buildup. That's the entire job of a component like the Quivira 3" x 12" Outdoor Kitchen Airflow Vent, which is made in the USA from 18-gauge, 304-stainless steel and lets crossflow air move safely through the enclosure. Small part, big safety role.
Common Mistakes and Misconceptions
"Any contractor can build an outdoor kitchen." They can build the structure. Whether it functions as a cooking space is another matter entirely. Grill clearances, ventilation, utility placement, and appliance fit are specialized knowledge, and getting one of them wrong can mean tearing out finished work.
"I need a grill and a separate smoker in my island." Not if you choose the right centerpiece. A high-quality pellet grill functions as grill, oven, and smoker in one appliance — worth emphasizing that this is true of the best pellet grills, not all of them. A Yoder Smokers YS640s Built-In Pellet Grill is a prime example: it handles low-and-slow smoking, oven-style baking, and high-heat cooking, which frees up your island for a complementary appliance like a gas grill, a dedicated searing station, or a pizza oven rather than a redundant second smoker.
"All pellet grills are basically the same." They all burn wood pellets for oven-style cooking, but only a select few can also handle high-heat searing, griddle work, rotisserie, or pizza-level temperatures. Build quality is a big part of that gap. Yoder Smokers grills are handcrafted in Kansas, USA from heavy-gauge steel, and ATBBQ is the exclusive online retailer of that brand. On the YS640s, the cooking chamber uses 1/8-inch (10-gauge) steel — that thickness is what drives the heat retention, steady airflow, and cook-to-cook consistency that turn out better food over more seasons than a thin-walled grill can manage.
"I'll figure out the utilities after the island is built." This is the single most expensive mistake in outdoor kitchen construction. Rough-ins are cheap and easy before the frame goes up and painful to retrofit after. Plan them first, every time.
Summary and Your Next Step
If you're near Wichita — or anywhere in the country — and you want an outdoor kitchen designed by people who actually cook, All Things Barbecue's in-house design team handles the whole thing: layout, custom-welded steel frame fabrication, and appliances chosen to work together. You get human designers who stay with your project start to finish, hundreds of builds' worth of experience, and utility, ventilation, and layout guidance dialed in before anything is set in place.
The next step is simple and free: start a free outdoor kitchen design consultation. Bring your space, your cooking style, and how you like to gather people, and the team will help you shape a kitchen that fits all three.
