The best tailgating grill is the one your stadium lets you light. People argue charcoal against propane like it's a matter of taste, but in a stadium lot it's usually a matter of rules, and the rules disagree. Nashville bans propane. Atlanta bans charcoal. At Ole Miss nobody grills at all. So start with your lot, then buy the grill.
Charcoal is banned (propane or gas works)
- State Farm Stadium (Cardinals) and Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Falcons): propane or natural gas only.
- SoFi Stadium (Rams and Chargers): natural gas or propane only.
- Bank of America Stadium (Panthers): no charcoal in stadium-operated lots.
- U.S. Bank Stadium (Vikings): the stadium policy says gas grills only, though the Vikings' lot rules also allow charcoal. Check your pass.
- College: Ohio State and Notre Dame (propane only), South Carolina (gas only), Michigan (no charcoal in U-M lots), Penn State, BYU, and Washington State while its game-day burn ban is on.
Propane is banned or limited (charcoal works)
- Nissan Stadium (Titans): charcoal only.
- Alabama: charcoal only, 50 feet from tents and buildings, with an extinguisher within 15 feet. No grilling under a canopy.
- Georgia: charcoal is fine. Propane is allowed only on disposable canisters of 17 oz or less, so a 20 lb tank is out. The standard 1 lb disposable cylinder holds 16.4 oz.
No grills
- The Grove at Ole Miss: no grills of any kind. Bring the food cooked.
Both are fine
Most of the rest allow charcoal or propane, usually with conditions: Arrowhead, Lambeau, AT&T Stadium, Highmark Stadium, Ford Field (self-starting charcoal, no lighter fluid), Arkansas, Oklahoma and Virginia Tech.
Tank caps: Baltimore 20 lb, mounted on the grill; Soldier Field 19 lb; Iowa and Iowa State one 20 lb per grill, no spares.
The 9 a.m. argument
In any lot that allows both, it starts early. One guy has a charcoal kettle and a chimney starter, and he's telling the guy with the two-burner that propane isn't really grilling. The two-burner has fed the row twice by eleven. At kickoff, one of them turns a knob and walks in. The other is still standing over coals he can't put back in the car.
So which grill?
Propane wins. More of these lots allow it, it lights with a click, and the knob is the whole cleanup. For a crew of 6 to 10, a two-burner tabletop grill with about 200 square inches of grate is the right size; that's roughly 10 burgers a round. The Monument G22 ($199) is the one we'd pick, for the lid window that lets you check the food without opening it, or the Monument 13742 ($169) for the same grill with a solid lid. We haven't cooked a full season on either yet; when we have, this paragraph will say what we learned. If you tailgate in Nashville, Tuscaloosa or Athens, buy charcoal instead.
Look up your lot in our stadium guides. Then buy the grill. Then have the burger argument, which is the only one worth having.
In this story
