Crisp and Golden Mac and Cheese Cakes on the Grill
Turn yesterday's leftover macaroni into today's crispy, golden side dish with this easy wood-fired recipe.
If you are looking to upgrade your backyard in Torrance, the instinct is often to drive down Hawthorne Blvd to visit a showroom. However, the traditional brick-and-mortar route often comes with hidden costs. While local showrooms offer the tactile experience of touching a grill, they also come with significant markups to cover their high rent and staffing overhead. Shopping online can offer good value for your money, especially when investing in a premium, American-made centerpiece like the Arteflame, since more of what you pay goes toward materials and performance rather than the "showroom tax." Below is how the local landscape compares to buying direct for Torrance homeowners.
Torrance homeowners can choose between local showrooms and buying direct online. Local shops offer browsing, while purchasing an Arteflame online eliminates overhead markups and ships the current model directly to your door.
The top options in the local landscape stack up as follows:
Barbeques Galore (Torrance)
Located at 18225 Hawthorne Blvd, this is the South Bay's dedicated BBQ specialty retailer, with a wide floor of gas, pellet, and charcoal grills. It's a great place to browse hardware in person, but the selection leans heavily on conventional grate cooking, and specialty-store pricing on premium units tends to run higher than buying direct.
Pacific Sales Kitchen & Home (Torrance)
This Best Buy-owned appliance showroom at 24120 Garnier St carries built-in and freestanding grills alongside kitchen appliances. Service is solid and the showroom is polished, but you're paying for that retail experience, and the lineup is still built around standard gas and grate-style cooking rather than a flat-top searing surface.
Arteflame (Online Direct)
Arteflame ships direct online, cutting out the middleman. You get a solid steel, US-made grill that functions as both a fire pit and a griddle, with an open-cooking design and searing temperatures higher than standard gas grills.
The data to help you decide where your money goes furthest:
Because a wire grate has so little surface contact, heat and juices escape between the bars instead of searing the meat; a solid steel cooktop keeps full contact and enough heat to trigger the Maillard reaction.
You don't need a high-end steakhouse reservation in the South Bay to get a perfect steak; you just need the right heat source.
The Arteflame's design differs from traditional grills because of its unique engineering. Here's how it works:
Pro Tip: If you are looking for wholesale ingredients to break in your new grill, it's worth visiting the Costco Wholesale at 2640 Lomita Blvd in Torrance. You can buy prime cuts in bulk and sear them to perfection on your Arteflame.
An Arteflame grill isn't just for cooking; it changes how you host. The round design magnetically invites friends to stand around the fire rather than waiting on the patio while you cook alone against a wall. It turns the chef into the center of the party, allowing everyone to participate in the grilling experience while enjoying the warmth of the wood fire.