Pergola Covered Outdoor Kitchen

There’s little better than an afternoon picnic or barbeque in the backyard. However, it can be uncomfortable to be outdoors during hot summer days. Adding a little shaded area to enjoy the outdoors even when the sun is at it’s most intense can go a long ways towards allowing you and your family to enjoy the outdoors.

One idea that will help you to address both issues at the same time is to create a covered outdoor kitchen. A pergola makes a great cover for such a gathering spot. You can adjust the spacing and angle of the slats to allow for different levels of shading, and the gaps will allow the heat from the stove or grill to easily pass through so it doesn’t get trapped underneath the roof like it would in many other outdoor structures.

There is a drawback to having a pergola as the covering for your outdoor kitchen though, and that’s rain. So this might not be the best idea for those in wet climates. Though if you do really want to go with a pergola in such a case, you could integrate a fabric rain-proof cover into your pergola.

Bring Your Garden and Kitchen Together

Outdoor Kitchen Design with Pergola by Jim Leigh

Perhaps the best reason to use a pergola as the cover for your outdoor kitchen is that you can use it as an arbor or trellis for your garden plants. Tomato vines can be trellised on a pergola, as can cucumbers, grapes, or various other fruits and vegetables. Meaning you always have vine ripe produce ready at hand in your kitchen!

If you trellis flowering vines on your pergola instead, it can help to create a beautiful and tranquil environment. Either way you can create a more natural feel to your outdoor kitchen, and add extra shading from the plant canopy.