Overall I'm very pleased with this purchase. In addition to the three-piece 805 Island, I ordered an extra shelving unit and the fridge unit with waterfall side. As you can see from the attached photo, this all fits together nicely with the left side up against a wall and the right side with the waterfall. Everything was packaged incredibly well on two pallets. Almost too good - we were left with a whole truckload of packing material (wood pallets plus bases for the individual pieces, plywood on some sides, large sheets of cardboard on other sides, plastic wrap and straps) which all needed to be disposed of. Can't really complain though since everything was in perfect condition once uncrated. Now for the issues we encountered:
1. We rolled all of the pieces into the desired position, a couple feet from the back wall so I could attach the rear connecting brackets. This is where I discovered that there were some missing screw holes. I went ahead and drilled the missing holes and used self-tapping screws in those locations. Not a big deal. or so I thought...
2. Rolled the whole thing back against the wall then went to make the connections between the pieces on the front side. Again, some pieces didn't have holes or more significantly, were missing the threaded inserts. Hmm.
3. Since I could not attach all of the fronts together I decided to settle for putting down the feet, which would add the necessary stability. I started trying to lower the feet and only a couple of them would go down. The rest would not budge.
4. Went to attach handle to the fridge and discovered that one of the holes was tapped with the wrong size threads. Definite QA issue on the part of Mont Aldi.
At this point I decided to call for support. I was going to call Outdoor Kitchen Pro but the instructions said to call Mont Aldi directly for support so I called them. The guy I talked to was "helpful" but also was quite condescending. I told him I was having trouble getting the feet to go down. He said that was not necessary, that the mounting brackets were enough to keep everything together. So then I told him about the missing screw holes and he said the pieces I bought were not intended to go together. He said they have informed dealers of this but OKP never passed that info along. OK fine, so now how do I get the feet to go down? Turns out that they have a nut on the bottom to keep them from going down! What?! There is only like two inches in between the island and the ground. How am I supposed to get the nuts off? Would have been nice to know this before I put everything into final position but it was not mentioned in the instructions and he had no good explanation for why this was done. Seriously, it was not like they were going to just fall down on their own. So he proceeded to instruct me to put my phone under there and take some pics to see where the nuts were then I could proceed to bash my knuckles on the ground trying to remove them. I settled for one foot down per unit, which seemed to provide enough stability to keep the pieces from separating. Next I mentioned the issue with the threads being the wrong size on the refrigerator handle and he absolutely refused to believe this could happen! He mumbled something about "operator error" which got me pretty pissed off. I offered to send him pics or return the defective handle but ultimately he agreed to send me a new one. Finally I mentioned that I had quite a few leftover screws and other parts that weren't referenced in the instructions. He basically told me not to worry my pretty little head about that. OK, not his exact words but certainly how it came across. Whew, all done with that nightmare support call!
Assembly aside, the grill is working great and we get lots of compliments on it. One modification I made was to remove the shelves from the extra shelving unit I purchased, and installed the "Simplehuman 35 Liter / 9.3 Gallon Dual Compartment Under Counter Kitchen Cabinet Pull-Out Recycling Bin and Trash Can" which I bought on Amazon.
Finally, we also got a free pizza oven with purchase of the island. I paid extra to get a cover for it but what I received is actually a carrying case, not a cover. You have to pick the whole thing up to get it inside the case and have to remove the gas line. It was a pain in the butt. I went on Amazon and found quite a few helpful reviews of this pizza oven, with suggestions on how to achieve the optimal temperature and avoid burning the crust. Also someone mentioned that the "Char-Griller 2455 Table Top Grill/Side Fire Box Cover" fits perfectly on the pizza oven so I bought one and it is great and only $16!. Wish I hadn't bought the misnamed "cover" from OKP, which cost $58.
I'm giving a five star rating despite these issues because the grill seems very well constructed, looks great and cooks great!
