Blackstone vs Camp Chef: Which Outdoor Griddle Wins

If you have ten minutes and want the short answer: I bought the Blackstone 1517 Original 28 inch Omnivore Griddle two summers ago, and after comparing notes with my neighbor Bev, who swapped her old propane grill for a Camp Chef flat top the same season, the Blackstone is still the one I would tell a friend to buy first. Both griddles turn out a mean batch of Sunday morning hash browns and smashed burgers, but the details that matter after month six, the grease trough, the steel thickness, the way the legs fold when Ray helps me wheel it into the garage before a storm, tilt toward Blackstone.

I am not a professional reviewer and I do not get paid to praise anyone's steel. I run a three burner gas grill and a twenty year old charcoal kettle on my back deck in the East Bay hills, and the Blackstone sits between them as the newest member of the family. Camp Chef makes a genuinely good flat top, and I will name exactly where it beats the Blackstone below, no sugarcoating. But if you are choosing one griddle to feed a table that regularly includes Nina, Paul, Sofia, Marco, and whichever neighbors wander over when they smell onions hitting hot steel, the Blackstone earns its spot.

We did not decide this by reading spec sheets on the couch. Bev and I have hosted enough back to back Sunday breakfasts on our respective griddles that we finally started keeping score out loud, over coffee, comparing what actually broke, what actually warped, and what we would each buy again if we had to start over. This comparison is that conversation written down, with the numbers filled in where memory got fuzzy, and with Ray occasionally shouting a correction from the kitchen speaker about whose griddle actually seasoned faster.

	Blackstone 1517 28 Inch	Camp Chef Flat Top Grill 600
Cooking Surface	470 sq in across a 28 inch griddle top	604 sq in across a wider 36 inch griddle top
Burners & Heat Zones	2 independently controlled H-style burners, 60,000 total BTU	3 independently controlled burners, 48,000 total BTU spread thinner across the wider top
Griddle Steel Thickness	3/16 inch rolled steel plate that holds heat evenly and resists warping	Thinner cook surface that Bev's copy warped near the front corner after two seasons
Grease Management	Rear-sloped trough into a removable catch cup, easy to empty without walking around the cart	Front-slope drainage, catch cup sits low near the wheels and knocks loose easily
Assembly	Roughly 45 minutes with two people, clear numbered steps	Closer to 90 minutes, more hardware and a bulkier cart frame
Portability & Storage	Folds down with locking casters, fits through a standard side gate	Wider footprint that needs a dedicated corner of the patio
Long-Term Value	Widely available parts and griddle-specific accessories	Smaller accessory ecosystem, harder to find replacement parts locally

Where Blackstone Wins

The first thing I noticed switching from a griddle pan on my gas grill to the actual Blackstone 1517 was how evenly the surface holds heat. That 3/16 inch steel plate does not have the thin hot spots I fought with on a smaller flat top griddle I borrowed from Paul before we bought our own. I can run six eggs on the left burner at a gentle simmer while the right side stays hot enough to sear a batch of smashed burgers for Marco, who only eats them extra crispy. The rear grease management system is the other detail I did not expect to care about. The trough slopes back into one cup I unclip in about four seconds, no reaching under the cart, no grease dripping onto the casters.

Assembly mattered more than I expected too. Ray and I put the Blackstone together in under an hour, following the numbered steps without needing to hunt for a missing bolt bag, which is more than I can say for the flat pack dresser we fought over last spring. The locking casters mean I can wheel it flush against the fence during a windy week and roll it back out the moment Bev texts that she is bringing corn. Camp Chef's cart assembly runs closer to ninety minutes by most accounts I have read and heard from other backyard cooks, with a bulkier frame that takes two people to maneuver comfortably.

The other thing I did not appreciate until this second summer is how the Blackstone holds up to hard use without babying it. I season the surface after every big cook, but I am not precious about it. Sofia has dropped a metal spatula on it more than once chasing pancakes around, and the steel shrugged it off without a mark that did not season back over within a week. Bev's Camp Chef griddle top shows scratches from the same kind of ordinary kitchen chaos that have not evened back out, which she chalks up to the thinner cook surface underneath that big footprint.

Cleanup is where the Blackstone quietly wins me over every single time. Because the grease runs to one back corner instead of pooling across a wider deck, I can scrape the surface, push the grease into the cup, and wipe it down in the time it takes Ray to change the record. Bev's routine takes longer, partly because of the extra surface area and partly because her front drainage means she is working around the burner knobs while she scrapes, which she says is the one chore she has never learned to love about her griddle.

Heat up time is the last small thing worth mentioning. The Blackstone gets to griddle temperature in about seven or eight minutes on a cool morning, quick enough that I can start cracking eggs while Ray is still setting mugs on the table. Bev's Camp Chef takes a bit longer to come up to an even temperature across all 604 square inches, which makes sense given the extra steel it has to heat, but it means she starts her burners before she even puts the coffee on if she wants everything ready at the same time.

Where Camp Chef Wins

Credit where it is due. The Camp Chef Flat Top Grill 600 that Bev owns has a genuinely bigger cooking surface, over 600 square inches, which matters if you are regularly feeding a crowd larger than mine. Her three independently controlled burners let her run a low simmer zone for onions right next to a screaming hot zone for steak, and the extra width means she can prep a full breakfast spread, pancakes, bacon, eggs, hash browns, without stacking plates at the edge of the griddle the way I sometimes do on the Blackstone's slightly smaller top.

Where the Camp Chef falls behind for my money is durability of the cook surface itself over time. Bev's griddle top developed a faint warp near the front left corner after two seasons of regular use, something we have not seen on my griddle even with heavier week over week cooking. Her grease cup also sits low near the front wheels, and she has knocked it loose twice while wiping the cart down. Camp Chef's accessory ecosystem is smaller too, so when she wanted a matching cover and a griddle caddy, she had fewer options than I found in the same afternoon of shopping.

Bev will also tell you the extra burner gives her more control when she is cooking for a full table, twelve people or more, which does happen at her place more often than mine. If your household regularly hosts that size of crowd, that third heat zone is a real advantage and not a marketing checkbox. It is the reason I did not tell her to return the thing. But for most of the Sunday mornings either of us actually cooks, six to eight plates, not twelve, the extra real estate goes unused more often than it gets filled.

The wider frame also catches more wind up on her side of the fence, which sits a little more exposed than my deck. She has had the flame gutter on a gusty evening twice, something I have not dealt with on the Blackstone even in the same weather. It is a small thing most of the year, but it is the kind of detail you only notice after you have cooked outside through two full winters, not after the first demo in a parking lot.

Bev's griddle cooks a bigger breakfast. Mine is the one that still looks and runs the same as the day we bought it.

Who Should Buy Which

If your table looks like mine, six to eight people most Sundays, occasional overflow when Nina and Paul bring the kids plus whoever Bev has invited, the Blackstone 1517 is the easier long-term buy. It is simpler to assemble, easier to store against a fence line, and the grease system stays clean without extra effort. If you are regularly cooking for twelve or more, or you specifically want three independent heat zones for a big breakfast spread, the Camp Chef Flat Top Grill 600's larger surface is worth the tradeoff in cart size and the slightly fussier maintenance Bev has described to me over the fence more than once.

Think about how often you actually cook outdoors too, not just how many people show up on the busiest Sunday of the year. Most weeks it is just Ray and me, a couple of eggs, some peppers, maybe a quesadilla for lunch, and the Blackstone handles that ordinary weekday cooking without feeling oversized the way Bev's wider griddle sometimes does for her weeknight dinners. A griddle that is easy to fire up for a small, ordinary meal is one you will actually use three times a week instead of saving for company.

Storage space should factor in too. If you have a narrow side gate or a small patio corner like ours, the Blackstone's tighter footprint and folding legs make it a lot easier to tuck away between cookouts. Bev keeps her Camp Chef under a full cover year round because there is nowhere else for it to go on her patio. For more on how griddles compare to the charcoal routine I grew up with, I wrote up ten reasons griddles have started outperforming charcoal grills in my own rotation, and if you want the long view on daily use, my long-term Blackstone review covers six months of real cooking.