A little help?

Your outdoor kitchen looks great. With the scorched wood issue, you could trim out more space for the egg, say 1 inch greater radius all around. And I'd do the same for the stove top. This should prevent heat from the cooker doing any future scorching.

Wood makes an an excellent table top, comfortable to use and touch, easy enough to repair and will form a time honored 'patina' with years of use. If you want the wood to look 'as new' all the time it's going to require repeated sanding and repeated finishing. I like the look of aged old wood and all the little dings and worn edges (even small burn marks) that years of use creates. A time honored surface patina is more interesting than spankin new wood in my opinion. I respect your wishes for your cedar wood kitchen to look fresh but in an outdoor cooking environment the look of a wood table is going to change over time. And that's the nature of wood.