Yeah, the front shelf is a little small. I don't actually use it for anything but catching leakage. I have a nice butcher table I put next to our grill. Works really well. But if you are limited on space, etsy has some really nice wooden ones you can upgrade (they are custom).

Great question... because it's a wood burning smoker style it gets up to temp much faster than its competition. Depending on what you are cooking (brisket for example), it's ready within 5 min. To get up up to 350 I would guess around 10-15 min as long as the outside temps aren't too cold. This particular one has a seal that is not on the lower end Traegers, so it will essentially work better in colder temps and not burn as many pellets (which can get expensive). Hope this helped! If so, please sub