You said you don't want to use templates, but I think you were talking about column templates.

You can change the markup of the td itself by using a row template:

<script id=template type=text/x-kendo-template>

    <tr data-uid=#= uid #>

      # this.columns.forEach(function(col) { 

          var val = data[col.field],

          css,

          style = ''

          cClasses = ''; 

          if (typeof col.attributes === 'function') {

              css = col.attributes(data); 

              cClasses = css[class];

              style = css.style

          } 

      #         

          <td class='#= cClasses #' style='#= style #'>

            #= data[col.field] #

          </td>

      # }) #

    </tr>

</script>

For the loop to work, you need to bind your template to the grid though:

var grid = $(#grid).kendoGrid({

    columns: [{

        field: name,

        title: Name,

        attributes: function (e) {

            return {

                class: table-cell,

                style: e.name == Jane Doe ? 

                       background-color: red : background-color: green

            };

        }

    }, {

        field: title,

        title: Title

    }],

    dataSource: [{name: Jane Doe, title: Dr. Dr.}, 

                 {name: John Doe, title: Senior Citizen}]

}).data(kendoGrid);



var template = kendo.template($(#template).html()).bind(grid);

grid.setOptions({

    rowTemplate: template

});  

(demo)

As an alternative, you could also create attributes like this:

{

    field: name,

    title: Name,

    attributes: { 

        class: # if(data.name === 'Jane Doe') { # red # } else { # green # } # 

    }

},

This would have the advantage of not using the row template, but you'd have to use the template syntax for the logic.

(demo)