Patio Furniture and bbq equipment

I bought the bbq last weekend, but have a couple of stupid questions. First off, where do I buy 'gas' for a gas bbq? I believe it is the normal size tank. Secondly, being new to Chicago, I cannot find a good place to buy patio furnature. Living in a high-rise, I am looking for a small bistro set or something. Any ideas? I've looked at a couple of places, but I think I am missing the obvisous places.

TIA.

Home Depot for both items.

I just bought some pretty decent wrought iron style patio chairs at Costco for less than $20 each. I expect that they will far outlast pvc and if they break I can always break out the welder. I believe there were matching tables but I am not sure of the price. I have seen them in Oak Brook, Clybourn, and Burbank.

We just bought some patio furniture on-line at Amazon.com!

Go to the Smith and Hawken OUTLET next to Sam's wine shop. Sometimes they have great stuff on sale there. Of course, you're most likely to find patio furniture in December, there

Smith and Hawken Outlet
(312) 266-1948
1780 N. Marcey Street
Chicago, IL 60614
Monday - Wedensday 10 to 7 • Thursday 10 to 8 • Friday 10 to 7 • Saturday 10 to 6 • Sunday 11 to 5

You might also look over at Cost Plus World Market. Their stuff tends to be bulkier and made of tropical woods but they might have some smaller items that are more in line with your high rise environs. I have found their furniture to be fairly reasonably priced.

Most grocery, hardware and convenience store stock propane tanks. you buy the first one for ~$5 and then "swap" when it is empty for ~$16.

For furniture - Pier One, Ikea, and Cost Plus all carry sets in this style.

bistro sets are sold just about anywhere these days... target one or two options in bistro sets that looked pretty decent.. it also seems like places like tj maxx always have a small bistro table w/ chairs...

home depot / menards / etc have them too, obviously.

(btw, for propane... it seems like its a crapshoot in the city to get it filled.. a few of the places that did it went out of biz, and every time i've tried elsewhere i've struck out--nobody was there--wrong hours--etc). your best bet is to do a cylinder exchange at home depot, menards (cheaper than HD), or most gas stations also have propane exchanges. you will need a standard tank. (if you bought a cheapo "patio" grill that's smaller, a few of those use smaller tanks that you won't be able to exchange)

kafein wrote:Most grocery, hardware and convenience store stock propane tanks. you buy the first one for ~$5 and then "swap"

fyi, any empty propane cylinder these days is at least ~$20, not $5... (that's what they are at costco, so that's probably the cheapest you'll find)..

if you don't already have the tank to exchange, the home depot by me was selling the new propane tanks with propane for a whopping $46.

When I used to work on the southwest side, I used to take the CO2 (and sometimes Nitrogen as well, depending on what we were drinking) tanks from my kegerator to a business located in an auto parts store called "The Gas Guys". One visit I discovered that they also did propance refills instead of tank swaps.

I think it was only $10 or $11 to fill the tank, as opposed to the more expensive swaps. (Of course, these days I just do the gas station swap. Convenience wins.)

I'd imagine most other gas vendors would do this as well.

The Gas Guys
8300 S Harlem Ave, Bridgeview
(708) 598-6210

That would be a typo - $45 for a new tank - $15 - $20 to swap. We picked up ours yesterday at the K Mart on Addison at St. Louis.