I spent 15 years on a line and another 12 judging barbecue, and the question that fills my inbox is never about rubs or wood chips. It is some version of "which grill do I buy?" This propane gas grill comparison is the answer I actually give people: the Royal Gourmet GA5401T, a five-burner stainless grill with a side burner rated at 61,000 BTU, against the Kenmore 3-Burner, a 30,000 BTU propane grill with cast iron grates, folding side tables, and wheels. Then the two pieces most people forget about until week three, a Leteuke grill cart built for a Blackstone griddle and a bottle of Weber exterior grill cleaner.
Related: Gas Grill BTU Ratings And What They Actually Mean
For most backyards, the Royal Gourmet GA5401T is the pick, because five burners plus a side burner give you heat zones you can cook with and a place to hold sauce off the fire. The Kenmore 3-Burner is the smarter buy for a small patio, a tight budget, or a household that cooks for two. The caveats matter more than the headline, and I will get to them.
Royal Gourmet GA5401T 5-Burner Gas Grill
Five burners plus a side burner means real heat zones and a place to simmer sauce outdoors; stainless body and a big cooking surface for parties
61,000 BTU spread across that much grate area rarely means a screaming sear zone, and thin stainless shows every fingerprint
Kenmore 3-Burner Propane BBQ Grill
Cast iron grates hold heat and give back when a cold steak lands; folding side tables and wheels make it a one-person setup for a small patio
30,000 BTU across three burners is modest, so recovery time after you open the lid is the weak point; smaller grate area means cooking in batches
Leteuke Grill Cart for Griddle
Gives a griddle or portable grill a real work surface at working height, with wheels that move it to the shade
It is a cart, not a cooking appliance, so it solves staging and storage, not heat
Weber Exterior Grill Cleaner Spray
The cheapest way to keep a grill looking and working like it did in year one, aimed at grill finishes
It cleans the outside only; it does nothing for carbonized grates or a clogged burner tube
Prices and availability were captured from Amazon Creators API and may change.
How I judge a gas grill
Same routine every time: a dozen burgers for evenness, a full brisket for heat stability, and a chicken for flare-ups, with a spiral notebook recording ambient temp, wind, and where the hot spots landed. That is the standard I hold a grill to before I call it good.
Honesty first. I do not have three full cooks logged on every unit in this table, so treat what follows as a read of burner layout, materials, and specs rather than a scored cook card. When a unit earns a week on my bench, the notes change, and I say so.
Two of the four items here are not grills at all. A cart and a bottle of cleaner do not get scored on flare control. They get scored on whether they make the grill you bought easier to live with, which is a different question and one more people should ask before they spend money on a second thermometer.
Burner count is not a size contest
Five burners sounds like more grill. Sometimes it is. Five burners over a wide chamber means you can run two lit on the left for a sear zone, one on the right holding 250 for a rack of ribs, and leave the rest off. That flexibility is the whole game in gas cooking, and it is why the Royal Gourmet's layout is the more useful of the two here.
A bigger chamber has a cost, though. More steel, more grate area, and the same 61,000 BTU has to heat all of it. If your average cook is four burgers and a couple of ears of corn, you are paying for grate area you will scrape clean and never fill.
The Kenmore makes the opposite trade. Three burners and 30,000 BTU over a smaller chamber means the heat that exists is doing work on every square inch. The catch is headroom: three burners will not give you the wide sear zone a five-burner can, and recovery time is where a 30,000 BTU grill shows its ceiling.
The five-burner case: Royal Gourmet GA5401T
This is the grill I would point a party host toward. Five main burners plus a side burner, stainless body, 61,000 BTU. The side burner is the underrated part. It keeps the pot of beans, the sauce you are reducing, and the corn pot outside instead of tying up your kitchen, and it keeps you at the grill instead of walking back through a screen door every ten minutes.
What I would check before it becomes my recommendation for your patio: burner layout and tube shape, because that predicts hot spots more than any number on the box. On a wide five-burner, the corners are usually the coolest part of the chamber and the middle third runs hot. You learn that on cook one if you pay attention, and you cook around it after that.
Second, feel the steel. Stainless at this size and price is often a thin skin over a painted or galvanized body. Thin stainless heats fast, which is fine, and flexes, which is not. If the lid twists when you lift one corner, you know what you are buying.
Third, side tables. My standing complaint about this price bracket is side tables smaller than a plate. A table that cannot hold a sheet pan is a table that sends you back to the kitchen mid-cook.
The three-burner case: Kenmore
The Kenmore 3-Burner is the one I would put on a balcony or a small patio, anywhere the grill lives next to a wall. Three burners, 30,000 BTU, cast iron grates, folding side tables, wheels, and tool hooks. The cast iron is the part that earns its keep. Cast iron holds heat and gives it back when a cold steak lands on it, which is the closest thing to a sear zone you get at this output level. It also rusts if you leave it wet, so a brush, an oil rag, and a cover are not optional.
Folding side tables and wheels sound like small details and are not. Folding tables mean the grill fits a footprint a fixed-table unit cannot, and wheels mean one person can roll it out of the weather, which is the single biggest factor in how long a budget grill survives.
The honest limitation: 30,000 BTU across three burners is a modest fire. You will cook in batches on a party day. If you feed a crowd regularly, that is the reason to spend up to the Royal Gourmet. The azure blue finish is a choice, and I like that it is not another black box.
Where BTU numbers lie
BTU numbers bigger than the honesty. That is my pet peeve, and both of these grills are a lesson in it. BTU is a fuel burn rate, not a temperature. A 61,000 BTU grill with a badly shaped firebox and thin grates can run cooler at the grate than a well-built 30,000 BTU grill with cast iron and a tight lid.
What you actually want to know is how fast the grill comes back to 350 after you open the lid. Recovery time is the most honest spec in gas grilling and the one nobody prints on the box. Read BTU as a rough indicator of how much grate area a grill can plausibly heat, then look at grate material and thickness, lid weight, and burner layout. Those four things tell you more than the number stenciled on the front.
The cart is a work surface, not an accessory
If you own a Blackstone griddle or a portable grill and you have been cooking on a folding table, the Leteuke grill cart is the upgrade that changes your setup. Griddles and portable grills are built to sit at working height, and a card table puts the surface at your knees. The cart gives you a stable top, wheels, and a place to stage tools, which matters when you are running a griddle for a crowd and need somewhere for the spatulas, oil, and paper towels.
What it is not: a cooking appliance. It adds no heat, no grate area, no sear zone. If you are comparing it to a grill, stop. It is the work surface your griddle wishes it had, and for a griddle owner it is often the difference between cooking outside and giving up on it. A cart is also storage, and keeping a portable grill covered and off the ground is how you get more than two seasons out of it.
Cleaning decides how long the grill lasts
Weber exterior grill cleaner is the least exciting item in this comparison and the one I would buy first. Grease that bakes onto a lid and firebox does not just look bad. It attracts more grease, and a dirty grill runs hot spots and flare-ups that have nothing to do with its design. Cleaning the exterior is not cosmetic. It is how you notice a rust bloom on the firebox before it becomes a hole.
What it does: exterior surfaces, the lid, body, side tables, and frame. What it does not do: decarbonize grates or clear a burner tube. For grates you need heat and a brush. For burner tubes you need a wire and patience. Buy the spray for the outside and keep the inside on a schedule, because the grill that gets wiped down twice a month is the grill still working in year eight.
The scoring card
If I were scoring these on a judge's card, here is where I would look, and where you should too.
- Flare control: grate material and how much fat can drain away from the burners. Cast iron over an open firebox does well here. Wide grates with a lot of exposed burner tube do not.
- Recovery time: how fast the chamber returns to temp after the lid opens. BTU per square inch of grate area is the rough math, and it is why the five-burner has the edge on paper.
- Igniter: the first thing to fail on a budget grill and the hardest to replace. Look at how it is mounted, not just that it sparks on day one.
- Sear zone: how much of the grate actually gets hot enough to crust a steak. On a three-burner that is a small area. On a five-burner you can build one on the left and hold low heat on the right.
- Side table size and warranty coverage: a table that holds a sheet pan and a burner warranty that covers parts for years are worth more than any logo on the lid.
Who should buy what
Buy the Royal Gourmet GA5401T if you host, if you want a side burner for sauces and sides, and if you want room to build heat zones instead of cooking everything at one temperature. Buy the Kenmore 3-Burner if your patio is small, your guest list is short, and you want cast iron grates and a grill you can roll out of the rain by yourself. Buy the Leteuke cart if a griddle or portable grill is your main cooking surface. Buy the Weber cleaner no matter which grill you choose, and use it more often than you think you need to.
What I am testing next
I am in the middle of a flare-up control test across four brands, all of them claiming flare-free grates. So far one out of four is telling the truth, and I will publish the notes when the cooks are done, because no grill gets a verdict from me without three full cooks on the unit. No pellet grills in this comparison, and there will not be. That is the smoker bench, and I send people there when they ask.
One last thing. Whatever you buy, write down your first three cooks: ambient temp, wind, which corner burns. Your grill's hot spots are not a defect, they are a map, and the cook who knows the map beats the cook with the bigger BTU number every time.