Blackstone Original vs Omnivore

What actually differs

Blackstone’s Original line uses bare rolled carbon steel — on the 28 that is a 10-gauge plate. This is the classic flat-top surface: season it, it becomes genuinely non-stick, and it can be restored indefinitely.

The Omnivore plate is a different cooking surface. It is not a non-stick coating in the Pit Boss sense, and it is not the bare rolled steel of the Original either. Practically, it takes seasoning differently.

This matters mainly because most seasoning advice online is written for bare carbon steel, and people applying it to an Omnivore plate conclude their griddle is defective when the first few rounds look different from the photographs.

Season it per the plate, not per the internet

The universal principles still hold: very thin coats, heat until the smoking stops, repeat. What changes is appearance and how quickly the surface darkens.

Follow Blackstone’s guidance for the Omnivore plate specifically. A patchy, bronze surface after the first round is not a failure — it is a new griddle, and this is where people make the classic mistake of compensating with a thicker coat, which produces the sticky finish that eventually flakes off.

Our Blackstone seasoning guide covers both surfaces.

The configurations differ too

The lines are not just two surfaces on identical bodies. Omnivore configurations tend to carry other differences — the 28″ XL Omnivore has three burners and electronic ignition against the standard 28’s two burners and piezo, plus 88 more square inches.

So in practice you are rarely choosing a plate in isolation. You are choosing a configuration that happens to come with a plate, which is why the 28 versus 28 XL comparison is the more directly useful page for most buyers.

Check the BTU rating on Omnivore models

The 28″ XL Omnivore body is listed at 28,500, 45,000 and 48,000 BTU across different retailers, all at 613 square inches. That is a 46.5 to 78.3 BTU-per-square-inch range — the difference between the weakest cart griddle in our guide and one of the strongest.

Read the spec panel on the exact listing. This is the single most important thing to do when buying an Omnivore model.

Which to choose

Original if you want the classic, well-documented carbon-steel experience with a thick plate, abundant community knowledge and a predictable BTU figure.

Omnivore if the configuration you want — usually more zones for the footprint — comes on that plate, and you are comfortable following plate-specific seasoning guidance and checking the spec panel.