Home Depot flew me out to their Unmatched 2026 media event, and one of their product segments involved a tour of various grilling brands and products.
Home Depot said that they are a “grilling destination” and that they have a wide range of grills that allow customers to choose the type of fuel they want to use.
Propane? Go with their Weber selection. Wood pellets? Traeger. Open flame? Their Even Embers Santa Maria grills work with charcoal and wood.
They also showed off the Weber Slate flat griddle, saying it’s durable enough to cut in.
I didn’t even know some of these types of grills even existed!
Someone I know recently went to Texas but didn’t take any photos of the food. How can I live vicariously through them until I can one day go on food tour myself?
Well, I won’t do that to you – I took some photos!
TASTE TEST!
Here’s a closer look.
And another one.
These beef skewers were cooked on a Weber propane grill. The cook (grill master?) said he marinaded them for 5 hours beforehand with a soy sauce-based blend.
I had another piece towards the end.
In no uncertain terms, these were the best pieces of grilled beef I’ve had. Now I’m worried that I have been severely missing out!
I believe this was skirt steak.
The flavor was great. The texture was great. The meat was soft. Juicy. It was perfect.
More meat! This batch of samples was from a Traeger smoker.
Closeup!
I liked the beef and only had a bite of the sausage – which was also good.
The open flame Even Embers grill seemed really cool. I wasn’t as big a fan of the bite of short ribs, but they were still great to try.
Then there was dinner! That’s partly why I didn’t eat all the sausage – we were told that dinner would be grilled.
I’ve been trying to cut back on sugar, carbs, and red meat. I gave in a bit, and it was great.
Dinner was a “Harry Potter style” banquet with 2 very long rows of tables divided into sections.
Dinner was 1,000 stars. I took a little bit of everything.
There was another type of beef that I added later but didn’t take a photo of. I wish I took a photo of the menu!
Even the side dishes were amazing!! Okra!
This was a huge test in self control.
I have had great food at other media events before. This was phenomenal and raised the bar. I HAVE BEEN MISSING OUT! Gotta up my grilling game after this.
Meeting everyone was great too – I loved connecting faces to names. It was just so much fun chatting with not only the people behind Husky products, but the folks who create a curated Home Depot experience – in stores and online.
I gave them a polite earful about some of the minor complaints I – and you – have about the online shopping experience.
I complained about the lack of ToughSystem expansion to the Dewalt rep (sorry!!), and loved their demo of the new lifting jack expansion.
I caught some string trimmer shrapnel to the left leg while talking with the Milwaukee cordless outdoor power tools rep. There’s a blood welt!
I kind of feel bad about missing the Milwaukee booth, but made sure to stop by to say hi during lunch. I had a couple of jokes lined up. “Ooh, Milwaukee, so what do you do?” Although, it might not have worked since at least one of the reps knows my face.
Oh – and I also scored a Milwaukee mechanical pencil after I lamented about not being able to find one at my local store.
I had a great chat with the Makita rep. They showed off some of the latest and greatest, and discussed what they love about the brand. In 17-1/2 years of ToolGuyd, they might have been the first Makita rep I have ever talked to in person.
It wasn’t on purpose, but my name tag was flipped over some of the time. With tool people, I got 2 out of 3 “I know you!” types of reactions. That’s the fun part of not often showing my face in content.
I missed Ryobi entirely during the first rotation, and some of the tools I wanted to check out were put away by the time we got back for dinner. But I did demo their 40V Max AWD cordless lawn mower, and we chatted about the snow blower.
I’ll probably talk a lot more about this soon.
Just… the FOOD!
The company (meaning people, but I guess Home Depot too) were awesome.
Overall, I think Home Depot did a great job with the event so far. Today is breakfast, a FIFA World Cup match, and then travel home.
I’m going to be thinking about those steak skewers for a while. The dinner dishes were great too. I just started some Okra plants in my garden, and hope to be able to harvest at least a couple of pods this year. Okra, corn, and red pepper was a great combo that I hope to be able to replicate.
Home Depot covered my travel, accommodations, and meals. And if future experiences are anything like this, I really hope they do it again!
