"We'll have 20 people here for Thanksgiving and if there's no turkey to eat, they'll turn into cannibals."

I see a youtube video in your future John Liu! I don't envy you having to make this decision under the time constraints of Thanksgiving. I don't know if you can even get the Bluestar or the AR in under 2weeks. Do you have a local showroom that you can visit and see if they have a floor model they want to get rid of? There a few recent Bluestar threads. I think the ovens are always the sticking points with these ranges. I looked at a Bluestar Cooktop and Rangetop about 2years ago. I really like Cooktop but decided to go with Induction and a wok burner instead of an all gas configuration.

Best of luck!

The BS RCS has 5 15K burners and 1 simmer burner on their 36" range. It is their lower end range. I have it and I love it. I really wanted the RNB but it was out of our price range. I worried that the 15K burners wouldn't be powerful enough but they are very powerful. I've cooked nothing except for a stir fry where I've kept the heat on high the entire time. I always have to turn it down after a bit because it's too much heat. FWIW I had the chance to cook on a Wolf range top with 18K burners while staying at a friend's place, and although quite nice, the RCS burners are definitely more powerful although only 15K. My guess is the sealed vs open difference??

BS ranges do not have electronic parts. No timer, no clock, nothing. I really like that about them. The oven works great, no problems with it at all, and it does have convection. The fit and finish of the RCS is nice. Not quite as nice as the RNB but still nice. And the newer version looks to be a bit nicer than mine, though I haven't seen one in person.

Usually dealers keep the RCS in stock, so you can usually get them in a week or less. That's what our local appliance place told us at least. So you might get lucky getting an RCS quickly.

Good luck!

Love my almost three year old Bluestar 36" RNB with griddle. It is a true workhorse, and fits all your criteria, (no electronics, all gas, no frills, etc.)

Lead time may be your only issue, although I ordered mine a few days before Christmas 2012, and it arrived at my dealer second week of January. Also you may find a floor model, but may not be the color or burner configuration you really want.

Good luck, I hate to see you rushed into buying something on such short notice. Perhaps BBQ for the holidays? I've done turkey on my trusty charcoal Weber several times, better than the oven actually! :)

Three years ago, faced with the much same imperatives as John, I wound up with an NXR from Costco.com.

So, John, since you included NXR on your AJ Madison link, you might (or might not) be interested to hear that, for the next month, Costco.com has the 36" NXR with a delivered price of $2899. http://www.costco.com/NXR-36%22-Stainless-Steel-|-Professional-Style-GAS-Range-|-DRGB3602.product.11748747.html

The NXR is pretty much a decent knock-off of the old, 1980s vintage Wolf residential ranges (back before Wolf sold its residential stove division and brand to Sub Zero). About as no-frills as it gets. Certainly ticks all your boxes --- no electronics, no self-clean, ½" gas line,
etc. It has six full range "dual stacked" burners (being a good knock-off, the maker copied some of the parts list and installed the same Isphording burners that Wolf and Dcs used.) They are sealed burners --- anathema in the view of some folks, but fine according to others with different interests. (Commercial-style open burners and higher powered sealed burners have been the subject of considerable debate here over the years. No need to get into that here. You've either decided pro-style, dual stacked burners are acceptable or else you've concluded that nothing less will do than Blue Star open "star" burners (ala Garland's commercial ranges) or Capitol's commercial style multiport ring burners.) NXR threads here will confirm that the burners work from bare simmer to full bore 15k btu. Lots of NXR discussion here in the archives if you haven't already found them.

Personally, I'm sufficiently risk averse that I would only order an NXR from Costco.com. My reasoning is that, if I wound up with shipping damage or a lemon -- or decided after several months use that I just plain didn't like the stove --- Costco's absolute satisfaction guarantee would allow me to just bring it in for a full refund. If you have read across bmorepanic's thread on what happened with her on-line purchase of an NXR (from Plesser's, IIRC), you've already seen the cautionary tale about that risk.

While the Costco website says "1 to 3 weeks" for delivery, the actual delivery is usually quicker when they have these sales. (They have them when a bunch of ranges are on hand in the warehouse in Southern California). For example, when I bought my NXR during one of these sales, it took only six days to reach my house in rural Montana. Other GWers, living in the major metro hubs, have reported even shorter times. OTOH, sometimes it can take a lot longer. No way of knowing without checking with the Costco 800 number to see what delivery times are actually running to your part of the country.

That said, the risk of getting any pro-style ranges on short notice and in a hurry is that you can get a lemon and be stuck for a couple of months. Getting it replaced or fixed this time of year might not happen quickly. Doesn't matter whether you buy an NXR, American Range, Blue Star, whatever. With Costco, you just pack it up and take it back for a full refund. That is no consolation when you need a stove right now, though. A search through the archives here will turn up tales of woe and teeth-gnashing anguish on all of the above mentioned brands, too. There will be more of those tales about Blue Stars but that is simply because Blue Star has a bigger market share and sells a lot more stoves. One percent of Blue Star's customers is a lot more than one-percent of American Range's.

If you would prefer a Blue Star --- with its much beefier (cast-iron) top, much more capacious oven, and commercial-range style open burners for which there is a strong fan base here --- best chance of getting one quickly is probably only going to be finding a local dealer willing to sell you a floor model. Around here (a rural community) a friend interested in a Blue Star was told recently that they were"special orders" and would have a three to six weeks delivery window.

If you live in the northeast, anywhere near Boston, you could check with Eurostoves. The owner, Trevor Lawson, has been a frequent contributor here and the store has an excellent reputation. A month or so ago, there was a posting that Eurostoves had some "ding-n-bing" Bluestars for sale, and that might be worth checking out. This may not be of any help to you.

From your link to the antique stove dealer, I'm guessing you might be in southern California.

One caution for buying a Blue Star or American Range online is that the stoves are often "special order." That can mean no returns --- any defects or problems are strictly between you and the manufacturer's warranty service --- or it can mean huge "restocking" fees.

As for your questions about the antique stoves, here are some considerations. IIRC, none of the Merrit and O'Keefe models are actually 36" wide. There were a couple of model that were 35" wide and a bunch that are 39" or 41" wide. In my mid-country area, Wedgewood models seem to be the most readily available ones and they all seem to be 40" wide. We also see Chambers models once in a while.

The Wedgewoods seem to have used the same burners are the M & O'K models -- they are side ported, somewhat wider brass units with good flame spread for even heating and reasonable amounts of power. Some restored ranges will have the pilot lights replaced with modern electric ignitors. Folks who still have pilot-ignitions mostly keep the long nozzle bbq ignitors on hand. They just light top and oven burners when they need to use them. Once lit, the burners seem to offer excellent control but may be touchy for very low heat applications. (You'll want a flame tamer and maybe use double-boilers).

The ovens in the M&O'K and Wedgewoods tend to be smaller than we are used to, and the heating can be uneven and innaccurate. Most of the folks I know who have them use oven thermometers and unglazed quarry tile, pizza stones or baking steels to even out the baking and roasting, and plan on loooong preheating.

We've had a number of posts here on cooking with the vintage rigs and I believe there was one long thread on getting an M&O'K rather than one of the high end french ranges. Have you seen this thread?

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2255465/lacanche-vs-okeefe-and-merritt

Beyond that, I'd suggest searching with strings like "vintage + pro-style + range + gardenweb" or add in the brand names, too. I'd do similar searches for chowhound, egullet and chefsteps. That may be quicker than waiting for the old stove fans to show up and post.

John, how about extending Fori's approach and just go to Salvation Army, Habitat etc and getting any old stove for a hundred or less to hold you over until you can get exactly what you want.

Also, I used to have an Okeefe & Merritt. It was simple and fine for us, but I doubt that it really has high btu burners like you would hope for. If you wanted to go that route, I would expect that you might find one on Craig's List. They are simple to work on and you could probably fix one yourself. One nice point of the classic open burners is that you can just open up the gas input at any burner for larger flame until you reach maximum needed air.

Thank you all, these thoughts have been very helpful. So, just thought I'd let you know what's happened so far:

On Thursday and Friday I read these comments, other stuff on GW, checked Craiglist and visited appliance dealers. I also consulted with my friend, I call her my adopted mom, who is visiting us from Los Angeles. The best cook I've ever known, she has three ranges in her house: a vintage Wedgewood with 2 burners, griddle, 2 ovens, 2 broilers; a commercial Wolf 36" six-burner; and a commercial Jade four burner. We've cooked together a lot and she knows what I like to make.

The local choices were:

- on Craigslist, two vintage O'Keefe & Merritts with 4 (not 6 burners), griddle, and 1 oven/1 burner (warming oven on the other side), at $300 and $600.

- a local vintage range restorer had a number of O'K&M and Wedgewoods, but none with 6 burners.

- also on Craigslist, various commercial Wolfs and etc, but no "residential commercial-style" ranges from those companies that fit my criteria

- at store #1, Wolf, Viking, Thermador, Dacor, American Range, etc

- at store #2, Wolf, Viking, American Range, Bluestar, etc etc

Outside of this area, there were many other choices, and Trevor at Eurostoves offered his help too. But time is so short that I decided to stick to local choices.

I decided the vintage ranges, although beautiful and potentially not too expensive, wouldn't be right. My main complaint with the current range (besides that the oven is now kaput) is the weak burners, and the O'K&M etc wouldn't be a big improvement.

Among the new ranges, my desire for "no electronics" ruled out most brands. As far as I could tell, my choices - again, among what I could find locally - were Wolf, American Range and Bluestar. .

The Bluestar RNB seems like everything I'd want in a range. I've actually cooked on one before. At $6300 for 36" six-burner, it was a full $2000 more expensive than the equivalent American Range Performer at $4300. (The Bluestar RCS is a bit less expensive than the American Range, but has 15K BTU burners vs the American Range's 25K BTU burners.) I do like the Bluestar grates quite a bit more, but it wasn't worth $2000 to me. The Wolf was nice, but I didn't like it any more than the other two.

Store #2 said if I get the order in by this coming Tuesday, they can get the range to me by the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I was able to line up an installer who can meet the delivery team.

That's awfully tight, but fingers crossed it will work. Just in case, I have arranged to have the use of my neighbor's oven for Thanksgiving (they are coming to my house for dinner, so they were happy to help).

So I just bought an American Range ARROB363NAT!

Now I need to tear out the base cabinet on one side of the 30" range opening, and raise the upper cabinet on that side. My kitchen will look bad, but this will get me through the holidays and then we'll start a remodel in January.

What do you think about having the range placed on casters like the ones shown below, so that I can move it around during the remodel (e.g. when the floor is done), without having to hire folks each time?

http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-5245/Dollies/Leg-Dolly-2-Casters?pricode=WY576&gadtype=pla&id=H-5245&gclid=CjwKEAiAmqayBRDLgsfGiMmkxT0SJADHFUhPzbHK47oACHE5me7QCJqQFmblSKSlyY4rmXWapF9MQBoCvi7w_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Edit. Never mind, looks like you have a range now!]

I love my Bluestar 36" and a friend of mine loves his 48" Capital Culinarian, which was introduced after I bought the Bluestar.

The Capital has the advantage of having all the burners be the same 23,000 BTU burner while a typical Bluestar in 36" will have two 22,000, three 15,000 and one 9,000 or so "simmer." I like the industrial look (and yes, the start-shaped burners) of the Bluestar better but if I had to pick between the two today it would be quite difficult. The Capital is more featured, the Bluestar

On the advantage side for the Capital too, if you care, is that they have a self cleaning option (the Bluestar is not) and that it comes with a rotisserie in the main over (self cleaning models only).

I personally would not buy a gas range that does not have true open burners. If I decided not to get gas, then I would go induction.

Good luck!

I have mine on furniture sliders. They look cheesy, but work. My floor is a slate tile. The range legs don't adjust low enough for my tastes and it sticks above the counter too much (plus the mega-tall grates) so I hate to think how tall it would be with casters.

re: casters

A couple of thoughts.

First, is your present floor smooth (wood or linoleum/vinyl)? If so, your stove may slide relatively easily without casters or the like. If not, for about $10 or so, you could just get some 2" diameter furniture glides from the hardware store which likely would be fine on most floors.

Second, seems to me those U-Line moving dollies will be sticking out in front of the stove as tripping hazard. They also will boost the height of the cooktop, which might be uncomfortable depending on how tall or short you and the other cooks are. Doesn't AR have casters made for the stove? Are they a lot more expensive or will there be a delay to getting them?

My floor is rough slate, but we will tear that up and either restore the original wood floor, or install cork, or install tile.

The front legs are set back 2.5" from the door face. But still, the leg dollies could be toe-stubbing hazards, if not tripping hazards. They certainly won't be attractive.

AR makes casters for the rear legs only. The range is heavy (500 lb?). Possibly I could lift the front enough to insert a dolly (or a floor jack) just when I need to move the range. I do wish they made casters for all four legs, just as they do for their commercial ranges (I will find out if those will fit the residential range). My refrigerator is on casters, and that is convenient.

The extra height is fine. I'm 5' 11", the shortest person in our family is 5' 8". I'm going to have extra tall base cabinets too.

I am not trying to put a damper on your purchase, but why does anyone need 25k btu burners? Not meaning to criticize; I've seen many on this forum insisting on the 25k, so I just want to understand. I'd imagine the hood exhaust requirements must be pretty high. My burners are 12,500 btus, and I sear steak and do stir-fry and I rarely even crank them up to full power, and everything gets a crisp crust or the lovely spotty-brown in stir fry.

"why does anyone need 25k btu burners?"

The increased BTUs, providing that you use a cookware/burner configuration that would allow capture of that heat will allow faster preheating of a pan, faster heating of a big pot of water, faster recovery of heat when you add food to a pan and stir frying a larger amount at one time. You may or may not care about these things with the way you cook but some do.

"I personally would not buy a gas range that does not have true open burners."

What do you mean by. "True open burner"?

Are you referring to the fact that the Performer has a semi sealed burner tray vs an open tray or are you taking about capped vs uncapped burners?

Using one quarter inch hardwood plywood as a temporary surface, one can slide heavy objects with small feet or rollers over soft flooring, e.g., moving an SZ 632 over cherry.

Wekick, I'm not sure whether or not frenchman meant to include the AR model in the "true open burner" category. Maybe we'll get that clarified?

Anyway, "semi-sealed burner tray?" Well, yeah, that does sound like what I recall seeing when I checked out an AR Perfomer. Your are talking about those AR burners that look like sealed burners with the caps perforated and ported to create a vertical flame pattern all across the top cap? Makes a star shaped flame pattern that looks kind of like the Blue Star/Garland open "star" burners? (Or like Thermador's sealed star burners?) I didn't know what to make of it except that it sure seemed plenty hot enough to quickly mass quantities of of lead.

jw, there are really two aspects to be considered with the term "open". The first is the tray and the second is the cap. It used to be that most "open"burners were both open burner trays and open or uncapped burner heads. There was a video that showed the tray on the Performer and they called it semi sealed. It is uncapped though. I don't think that the sealed, semi sealed or open burner trays make any difference, except for your personal preference in cleaning. The burner cap may deflect the flame outward very little or a lot more than uncapped depending on the way it is engineered.

The spill trays under the burners of the ARROB don't look like they'll affect the flame much if at all. They might be a bother to clean, if spills get burnt on.

The burners have a central circle of holes, and short lines of holes going out from that, sort of a star pattern.

The grate is quite high. It is about 1/2" higher than the Bluestar grate. I am not sure why they designed it this way, and if it will affect the burner performance.

Incidentally, some of the other models had ball bearing slides for the oven racks. I considered that a negative. I often remove the lower rack and place a pizza stone on the bottom of the oven, and it seemed slightly harder to remove a ball bearing slide rack.

The spill trays aren't really near the flame and don't affect it at all. I haven't had stuff burn onto them somehow-- and we are not neat. I find it to be easy to clean because everything can go in the sink, but you do have to sling some large grates around. I only clean it when it's pretty gross or I am trying to look busy as a way to avoid dealing with unwanted house guests. =D

"The grate is quite high. It is about 1/2" higher than the Bluestar grate. I am not sure why they designed it this way, and if it will affect the burner performance."

I think it is designed that way and enhances burner performance. When the flame us on high, it places the pan in the hottest part of the flame. When you turn it low, there is much more distance between the flame and pan so accentuates both ends of the range of heat.

"Incidentally, some of the other models had ball bearing slides for the oven racks. I considered that a negative. I often remove the lower rack and place a pizza stone on the bottom of the oven, and it seemed slightly harder to remove a ball bearing slide rack."

I am not a big fan of rolling racks either because I change my racks around all the time. My wall oven did come with one rolling rack which I keep on the bottom. Some are a lot harder to move around.

I meant the uncapped burners when I said true open burners. The bottom does not matter for cooking as far as I can tell.

Actually the term "open burner" typically refers to the space that is left around the burners on older (and current commercial) stoves that leads to a drip tray underneath. Prior to the emergence of sealed burner cooktops, open burner stoves ruled the market. In terms of performance, they were actually superior to the current sealed burner due to better oxygenation of the burner. While burning, they were supported by an oxygen updraft from underneath the cooktop. Nowadays the burner is sealed off and once the flame has consumed all oxygen under your pan the flame reaches out to the sides of your cooking vessel to find its oxygen to burn, thereby reducing its effectiveness at heating. This is why the sole use of BTU ratings to determine performance can be misleading when it comes to cooking. How much heat a burner generates and how much of that heat actually ends up transferring to your pan, well... those are two different things.

The oxygen for combustion is mixed with the gas in the Venturi tube. The flame only moves out if there is a cap over the burner. Some move outward more than others depending on how they are engineered.

The 36" American Range is installed and happily simmering tomorrow's short ribs.

I was rather worried about its ability to simmer. But the trick of turning the knob to the left, toward "off", works great.

Ribs will be simmered in stock and wine for six hours, refrigerated overnight, deep fried, then tossed in the simmering liquid that has been reduced to sauce consistency. It's my alternative for those who aren't turkey lovers.