BBQ Tennessee
Outdoor kitchen built for Tennessee

Nashville · Brentwood · Franklin

What A Real Smoker Needs That A Grill Doesn't

Memphis has been smoking dry-rub ribs since the 1950s and has hosted the world's largest barbecue cooking contest every year since 1978; Nashville gave the country hot chicken. Nobody in this state needs to be sold on live fire. What most outdoor kitchens here get wrong is everything a real wood or charcoal smoker demands that a gas grill never does — clearance to anything combustible, somewhere for the smoke to actually go under a covered porch, and dry storage for the wood itself, built to survive a Tennessee spring. We design it, we supply it, and a licensed contractor sets it.

Two ways in

Buy a grill today, or design the whole thing.

Built-in grill in a stainless and stone island
01Shop

Grills, smokers, griddles

Freestanding and built-in units from the brands we carry. Priced online, delivered to your door, financing at checkout.

From $600 to $5,000

Browse the shop
Outdoor kitchen built for Tennessee
02Design

A full outdoor kitchen

Layout, appliances, cabinetry and stone, drawn around how you actually cook and entertain — then supplied to your door. A licensed contractor sets it. From a single island to a full estate kitchen.

Most builds land between $30,000 and $150,000

Start a design
Close detail of brushed stainless cabinet fronts and stone counter

Materials

Built for a Dixie Alley spring, not just a humid summer

Tennessee sits inside Dixie Alley, the Southeast's own severe-weather corridor, and nearly two-thirds of the state's tornadoes touch down in Middle Tennessee, which averages roughly 30 a year — on top of large hail reported somewhere in the state every year since 1955. None of that is a coastal problem, so the alloy call here has nothing to do with salt: 304 stainless and hail-rated components matter more than 316 marine-grade ever will. The other half of the state's climate is humidity — summers running roughly 65-70% average relative humidity in Nashville and Memphis alike turn a sealed, unvented cabinet into a mold problem within a season, which is why back-panel venting matters as much here as the alloy does. Winter is milder and shorter than it is further north, and local frost depth follows it: roughly 6 to 12 inches through the Nashville-Chattanooga corridor versus 18 to 24 inches in the northern part of the state, so footings run shallower than a New York or Ohio build — but Middle Tennessee has still been shut down for weeks by ice, most memorably in February 1994, when 2 to 6 inches of ice took down trees and power lines across the region. Every water line still gets a real fall shutdown.

304 stainless
The industry default, and the right answer for most of Tennessee. It is only the wrong answer where something corrosive reaches it every day.
316 marine grade
Adds molybdenum. It is the alloy specified for boat decks and coastal railings, for exactly this reason.
Powder coat over aluminium
Will not rust, but chips. Every chip is a place water sits. Good for inland, honest about its limits on the coast.

Not every project needs the top of that list. On plenty of sites it is money better spent elsewhere, and we will tell you which one you are before you pay for it.

Where this comes from

Fifteen years of outdoor kitchens. In the wrong climate.

BBQ Tennessee comes out of BBQ Québec — three stores, a team of thirty-five, and hundreds of custom outdoor kitchens built in a place that spends five months a year under snow.

That sounds like the opposite of a qualification. It is actually the point. When your build has to survive a freeze-thaw cycle, road salt and a forty degree swing, you learn very quickly which materials are honest and which ones are a finish.

Tennessee punishes the same shortcuts differently — a spring storm season instead of a long freeze, and humidity that never really leaves. The discipline transfers. The supplier list, the stone and the steel spec do not, so we rebuilt those from scratch for this market.

The full story

Where we work

7 cities. Each one different.

The build changes with the address. Hail-rated stainless and back-vented cabinetry, footings set to the local frost depth, and clearance to combustibles engineered around the smoker itself, not just the grill. And a home inside a gated community answers to an architectural review board before it answers to you.

1 more cities across Tennessee, each with its own page. Not on the list? tell us where you are.

Before you ask

The answers that are not on other sites.

Do I need a licensed contractor for an outdoor kitchen build in Tennessee?

For anything at or above $25,000 in combined labor and materials, yes — that tier requires a full Contractor License from the Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors. A separate Home Improvement License applies to smaller projects, but only in certain counties rather than statewide — the threshold and whether it applies at all depends on where the property sits. We design and supply the kitchen; a licensed local contractor installs it and pulls the permit.

Why does a wood or charcoal smoker need different engineering than a built-in gas grill?

Clearance and airflow, mainly. A masonry or wood-fired unit needs real clearance to anything combustible — the state's own residential code sets that at 36 inches for a standard masonry heater, tightening to as little as 4 inches only once the heater's own walls are built thick enough to act as the barrier — and the smoke has to have somewhere to go, which is a different problem under a covered patio roof than it is in the open air a gas grill usually sits under. We design the venting and the clearances around the fuel you actually cook with, not around a gas grill spec sheet.

Does all of Tennessee see the same tornado and hail risk?

No — it concentrates. Nearly two-thirds of the state's tornadoes touch down in Middle Tennessee, which sees an average of about 30 a year, the highest share in the state. Large hail has been reported somewhere in Tennessee every year since 1955, so no market here is exempt, but Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin sit closer to the core of that activity than Knoxville or Chattanooga do.

What does an outdoor kitchen actually cost?

A single island built around a good grill starts around $8,000. Most full builds land between $30,000 and $150,000. Estate projects — long runs, several cooking stations, stone and a covered structure — go well beyond that. The spread is not vagueness: it is the difference between one appliance and an outdoor room. What moves the number most is rarely the grill; it is the cabinetry, the stone, and how far the utilities have to travel.

All questions

Start here

Tell us about the space.

A photo of the patio and a rough budget is enough to begin. We come back with a layout, the material specification your site actually needs, and a real number for the whole supply — plus the contractor in your area who should be setting it.