Prefabricated cutouts
When an island is built on site, the grill is chosen first and its cutout drawing tells the builder what opening to leave. A prefabricated island comes the other way round: the structure is made, the openings are in it, and what goes into them has to suit.
That is not a limitation so much as a different route. It removes the construction entirely, which is the longest and least predictable part of an outdoor kitchen. What it asks in exchange is that the equipment list is settled against the island and not the other way round.
Island lengths
The islands here start at forty three inches, which is a single grill bay with a little counter beside it, and run up to twelve feet or more, which is a full outdoor kitchen with a grill, a sink bay, storage and a seating overhang.
The size decision is really a decision about what the outdoor kitchen is for. A compact island is a grill with somewhere to put the plates. A long run is a kitchen that people cook in while other people sit at it, which changes the terrace around it as much as the cooking.
Island construction
These are built as weatherproof structures, with stainless steel bodies and doors and granite or stone tops on several of them. Everything that goes into an outdoor island has to survive rain, sun and frost while being left outside permanently.
A granite top does that better than most surfaces, and that is its whole case here: it takes weather and heat and it does not need to be brought in for winter. The granite slab page covers the material itself.
Equipment and services
The island provides the openings and the structure. The grill, the side burner, the refrigeration and the storage doors are separate products chosen to fit them, and the grills page covers the largest of those decisions.
What the island cannot bring with it is the gas, water and power. Those have to reach the position it stands in, and in most gardens that means a run brought out from the house.
Seating and counter overhang
Above a certain length these islands stop being a cooking station and start being furniture. A counter that overhangs on one side turns the island into somewhere people sit, which is why the longer formats are shaped the way they are.
That changes the terrace around it more than the cooking does. A bar height overhang wants stools and clearance behind them; a flush counter wants the seating elsewhere and leaves the island as working space. Deciding which of those the terrace is for narrows the range faster than any other question.
Siting an outdoor island
An island of this size is effectively permanent once it is placed, both because of its weight and because the services come to it. It also needs a level, solid base underneath, which a terrace may or may not already be.
Those two facts together mean the position is worth settling before anything is ordered. The granite pavers and cobblestone range covers surfacing the area it will stand on.