What actually happens to outdoor kitchens after 10 years (not on install day)
15+ years around outdoor kitchen builds, and here's what nobody tells you at the design stage: almost nothing fails on day one. Everything looks great in the first photos. The real test is years three through ten, in actual weather. What I've actually seen fail, and why:
Stacked stone. The grout joints trap grease and moisture permanently. No cleaning product reaches inside them. By year two or three, it looks dirty minutes after you've wiped it down.
Granite and concrete counters. Porous. Without resealing every 6 months or so, oil and wine absorb permanently. Most people stop resealing after a year or two, and that's when the staining shows up for good. Concrete also hairline-cracks from freeze-thaw cycling.
Open-frame cabinets. The big surprise for most people. If the interior isn't a sealed box, it shares the same ground as your patio. Insects and moisture get in, and cookware stored inside starts rusting or molding after the first few rainy seasons. You usually don't notice until you go looking for something you haven't used in a while.
Appliance replacements. When a grill dies in year 5 to 10, the replacement has to fit the original cutout exactly, and manufacturers discontinue models and change sizes. That usually means a mason cutting and reworking stone, which is expensive and leaves visible repair marks.
Painted or powder-coated metal. Fine until the first scratch exposes bare metal. Then rust spreads under the coating from the inside, which is much harder to catch early.
The cost question people get backwards. Even a "cheap" outdoor kitchen isn't cheap. Say you spend $6,000. Will you be happy if, five years in, it looks tired, doors don't close right, or you're rebuilding sections just to swap a grill? The lowest-priced kitchen is still too expensive if it's not built to last. A $6,000 kitchen that holds up for five years can be a worse investment than a pricier one that still performs after 10 to 15.
Don't judge an outdoor kitchen by how it looks on install day. Judge it by how it's built to perform ten years from now.
Happy to go deeper on any of these if people are weighing specific materials or builds.