Next L.A. / A Look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis : A Hot Market for Gas Grills
Terry Harstad’s back yard in Walnut is as good a place as any to find the future of the Southern California leisure experience: High-impact side burners, stainless steel chassis, infrared heating element.
It’s a huge, gleaming edifice his friends call “the Astrodome,” and it set Harstad back more money than he likes to say. But you know how we Southern Californians can be when it comes to our . . . barbecues.
“Why would someone plunk down two, three, four grand for a grill?” laughed one salesman. “I don’t know, but they do.”
Tammy Galvin, editor of Casual Living magazine, reports that the market for big-ticket gas grills is the fastest-growing in the industry.
At Barbeques Galore in Laguna Niguel, owner Rodney Maister says barbecues in the $1,000-and-up range are moving at the rate of three a week.
“The whole market is moving upward in price,” said grill manufacturer Todd Clifford, whose Cincinnati-based Convenience Technologies has recently come out with a line of--no kidding-- digital barbecues that can be operated by remote control.
Industry observers say the trend has occurred as the manufacturers of gas grills have addressed longstanding complaints, ranging from uneven heat and wobbly construction to the charge that meat just didn’t taste barbecued without charcoal underneath.
Environmental issues also have played a part, as air quality officials have taken aim at charcoal lighter fluid.
The new lines of gas grills run hotter and are simpler to start than most charcoal grills, but they carry such big-ticket price tags that Sunset magazine refers to them as “Ultimate Grills.” Harstad’s--a top-of-the-line 48-incher--retails for $4,000.
“My friends kid me, it’s always gotta be the biggest and the best,” said Harstad, whose family joked that the new barbecue used up so much gas when he fired it up for the first time that it knocked out his dad’s pool heater a mile away.
“But it’s worth it if you’re going to keep your grill for a long time.”
Even if you still have to flip your burgers yourself.
