Blackstone Select vs Original (2026): Which to Buy, Honest Dealer Math

TL;DR. Buy the Blackstone Select 36 with Cabinet at $2,499 if the griddle lives on the patio year-round, you’re converting to natural gas, or you want 3-year warranty coverage. Buy the Blackstone 36 on the Original open cartat $999 if the griddle lives in the garage between weekend cooks, you’re a propane-only buyer, and you’d rather spend the $1,500 saved on anything else. The cooking surface is identical.

What’s Actually the Same

Before the differences, start with what’s identical. Both the Select Series and the Original cart use the same rolled-steel griddle plate — Blackstone’s signature cooking surface that seasons like a cast-iron skillet. Both use the same H-style burner pattern underneath, which is the engineering detail that gives Blackstone its edge-to-edge even heat distribution versus single-tube burner designs. Both have the same rear grease management channel. Both ship from Blackstone’s Logan, Utah operations with the same manufacturing tolerances on the cooking surface itself.

What this means in practice: a smash burger cooks exactly the same on a $999 Original 36 as it does on a $2,499 Select 36. Teppanyaki fried rice cooks the same. A 12-egg Sunday breakfast cooks the same. The cooking performance isn’t where you’re paying the $1,500 premium — the cabinet is.

The Full Spec Comparison

Where the Select Pays for Itself

Patio-stored year-round: The 304 stainless cabinet is the real headline upgrade. 304 contains roughly 8 percent nickel versus almost none in 430 stainless or powder-coat steel, and that nickel is what resists rust in salt air, humidity, and freeze-thaw cycles. On the Select 36 Cabinet, the whole lower cabinet is 304. On the Original cart, the exposed steel is powder-coated — which works until it chips at a corner joint, then rust starts underneath the coating and spreads from there. Timeline we see at the dealer: Original cart in a coastal install starts showing rust at the cart joints by year 2 to 3. Select cabinet in the same climate still looks factory-fresh at year 7.

Natural-gas conversion:The Select ships with a pre-tapped LP/NG inlet designed for either fuel at the manifold, with the orifices and regulator both included. A plumber or gas-appliance tech can swap in 20 minutes. The Original cart can convert too but typically runs through an aftermarket quick-connect adapter — the swap works, it’s just less tidy and the inlet geometry isn’t designed around the NG use case. If you’re on NG at the meter, the Select is the cleaner path.

Warranty coverage:3 years on the Select versus 1 year on the Original. For a griddle used weekly, year 2 and year 3 are when the ignition module and the burner tubes are most likely to need coverage — the Select has you covered there and the Original doesn’t. We’ve run Select warranty claims at year 2 on burner tubes without an argument from Blackstone; on the Original those same claims come out of pocket.

The soft-close drawer: Sounds trivial on paper. In practice, having a real tool drawer for spatulas, scrapers, squeeze bottles, and seasoning oil — in a weatherproof stainless enclosure — is the detail that makes outdoor cooking actually feel like outdoor cooking. The Original cart gives you an open lower shelf that collects pollen, rain, and spiders. The Select drawer closes on its own and stays dry.

Where the Original Wins

Price per cooking square inch: At $999 for a 768-square-inch cooking plate, the Original 36is the lowest cost-per-square-inch outdoor griddle in our catalog — roughly $1.30 per square inch versus $3.25 on the Select Cabinet. If raw cooking surface is what you’re optimizing for, the Original wins and it’s not close.

Garage-stored, weekend-only:If the griddle lives in a garage or shed between weekend cooks, the cabinet metallurgy argument evaporates. A powder-coated steel cart in a dry garage looks factory at year 10. The Select’s stainless cabinet is overbuilt for that use case — you’re paying $1,500 for weatherproofing you don’t need.

22-inch size: If you need a 22-inch griddle (RV cooking, apartment balcony, boat deck), the Original cart is the only path — Blackstone doesn’t make a Select Series Cabinet in 22 inches. The 22-inch Original on cart at $599 is the right spec for anyone whose outdoor space is measured in square feet rather than square yards.

Lighter + more portable: The Original cart is roughly 70 pounds lighter than the Select cabinet. For a griddle that gets moved — rolled off the deck, lifted into a trailer, hauled to a tailgate — the weight difference matters. The Select is a bolt-it-down-and-leave-it unit.

Decision Tree — Who Should Buy Which

Written out as a decision tree:

Buy the Select 36 Cabinet ($2,499)if any of these apply: griddle stores on the patio year-round, you’re in a coastal / humid / salt-air climate, you’re converting to natural gas, you want 3-year warranty coverage, you want a soft-close tool drawer, or you’re building a nice outdoor kitchen where the open-cart aesthetic would clash.

Buy the Original 36 on open cart ($999) if any of these apply: griddle lives in the garage or shed between weekend cooks, you’re staying on propane only, you cook once or twice a month rather than weekly, you want to spend the saved $1,500 on anything else (a quality Bull BBQ grill, a Blackstone Pizza Oven, or a weatherproof patio cover), or you need the 22-inch size specifically.

Buy the Select 28 Cabinet ($1,999) if the patio is tight AND you want the Select build quality — same cabinet upgrade applied to the smaller footprint.

Step up to the Air Fryer Combo ($2,999) only if you specifically want parallel outdoor cooking (wings + burgers at the same time) AND you have 120V power at the patio.

The Numbers at Every Size

The full Select-vs-Original price ladder across all three sizes currently on BBQs.com:

22" Original only

Blackstone 22" Griddle w/ Cart (Black)

From $599

28" Select Cabinet

Blackstone Select 28" 3-Burner Freestanding Griddle w/ Cabinet

From $1,999

36" Select Cabinet (top pick)

Blackstone Select 36" 4-Burner Freestanding Griddle w/ Cabinet

From $2,499

For the 28-inch size, the Select premium is $1,200 — slightly less than the $1,500 delta at 36 inches. If you’re committed to the 28-inch footprint, the Select 28 Cabinet is the better value in the Select lineup. For the 22-inch size, there is no Select option — Original is the only path.

What About the Built-In Heads?

Everything above applies to the freestanding Blackstone models. The built-in griddle heads — the 36-inch Select Built-In at $3,499 and the 28-inch XL Built-In at $1,899 — are a separate decision from the Select-vs-Original question. There’s no “Original” version of a built-in head; the only choice is which built-in size matches your island cutout. The full built-in cross-shop lives in built-in vs freestanding, and the full lineup is in the complete Blackstone buyer’s guide.

Final Dealer Answer

If you called the shop and asked which one to buy without context, the honest answer is: Select Cabinet 36 at $2,499. It’s the one we recommend most often, it covers the widest range of use cases, and the stainless cabinet pays off within a few years for anyone whose griddle lives outside. See the Select Series Buying Guide for the full Select lineup breakdown (28 vs 36 vs Air Fryer Combo).

If you called and told me “I cook on it maybe once a month, I store it in the garage, and I don’t care about anything but the cheapest griddle that cooks well,” the honest answer is the Original 36 cart at $999. It’s a legitimate buy for that use case, and anyone who tells you otherwise is upselling. See the broader Blackstone brand page or compare across every griddle brand on the flat-top griddle category page.