The Outback Adventures Awesome Trailgater – The Kitchen Counter For Your Jeep!

Image courtesy of Doug from Outback Adventures

How many times while camping, hunting, fishing, out on the trail, or just in the parking lot of the big game have you wanted a relatively large, sanitary, out of the way surface to prep food, cook a meal or rest your cold one, when the ground, fender flares, hood and cargo area just won’t do?

What if you could put the kitchen counter in your Jeep?

That’s exactly where the Outback Adventures Trailgater comes in.

While designed and marketed towards meal prep and eating on your outback adventures, the Trailgater is obviously useful for so much more.  It’s a workbench, bait prep, fish or small game cleaning station, or just an extra space when you need to put something down.  Spend any time on the trail, or otherwise in the great out of doors with your Jeep, and you already know this is a truly, phenomenal, value-added idea.  Don’t think you need one of these, and you just haven’t spent enough time Jeepin…

The main component of the Outback Adventures Trailgater include a 14 gauge (0.075″) food-grade Stainless Steel counter, a 0.120″ Aluminum Backsplash, both CAD designed, laser cut, CNC bent, and de-burred, and your choice of a fancy Bamboo, or Sanalite (HPDE) stow-able cutting board.  The Trailgater can hold up to 45lbs, which should be more than adequate for anything you’d realistically want a fold down tailgate table to hold.

What do those fancy specs really mean to you?

Image courtesy of Doug from Outback Adventures

The Outback Adventures Trailgater is an extremely well thought-out, extremely well constructed piece of equipment!  Doug, the owner of Outback Adventures and inventor of the Trailgater, obviously invested significant time and energy into the product.  I’m sure there were more than a few iterations of the design before it evolved into something with which he was finally happy.  After having a couple conversation and trading a few emails with Doug, I can tell you that he is very proud of his product, rightly so, and genuinely wants us, as his customers, to be completely happy with the Trailgater.

There are some competitive options, and I researched them all, thanks in large part to some really good comparison threads on the net, but I liked the Outback Adventures Tailgater best.

So, what sold me on the Outback Adventures Trailgater?

As a general philosophy, I’d rather spend once than constantly replace cheap alternatives, so I believe in buying the best products you can afford.  The following highlights make the Outback Adventures Trailgater the best product of it’s kind, for me:

• With a 13″ x 25″ main table, plus a 10″ x 14″ cutting board, you get Best in Class usable space, or roughly 465 square inches.  

• To my eye, and compared to everything else I’ve seen, the Trailgater just has an aesthetically pleasing, high-class look.  The heavy-gauge, food grade stainless steel and the aluminum back-splash are a perfect balance of form and function. Food prep, including direct contact with the Trailgater, and the necessary clean-up afterwards, to ensure your tailgate table doesn’t become a Petri dish of bacteria, wasn’t an afterthought.  Maintaining as santiary an environment as you can on the trail, and the health and well-being of his customers, are clearly important to Doug.  The backsplah is another really nice touch, and something skipped by many competitors. Not only does it complete the look, but it protects the finish on the inside of your factory tailgate.

Image courtesy of Doug from Outback Adventures

• You can see the meticulous attention to detail everywhere.  Every surface of the product has been professionally finished, smoothed or rounded in a thoughtful manner, giving the product an exceptional fit and finish. There are no unfinished sides, nor sharp corners or edges for the kids to hurt themselves on.  Even the hinges, and quick release pins are high quality.
  

  Image courtesy of Doug from Outback Adventures

Image courtesy of Doug from Outback Adventures

• The no drill, yet very strong installation, that works seamlessly with the factory subwoofer and sub-floor cubby found in 07 – 14 JK’s.

Image courtesy of Doug from Outback Adventures

• The space saving design protrudes only two inches into the cargo area when folded up and stowed.

• I like that there are NO MOLLE attachments on the product. Why?  It’s gonna suck the first time you spill your suds, clam bait juice, fish guts, or whatever else you put on the table, and it runs all over, and into your survival, recovery, first aid, or whatever other gear you have attached to the underside of the table!  Honestly Officer, that beer stench is from a beer I spilled months ago. I just can’t get the smell out of my MOLLE gear. lol  (Besides, I found a better solution for MOLLE attachment points.)

• Finally, my friend Rin, THE JK expert at OK4WD, who has the option to run anything he wants in his JK, runs the Outback Adventures Trailgater.  That should tell ya something.  Why?  On top of everything else, the Trailgater DOESN’T RATTLE!

I’m hard pressed to find any criticism of the Trailgater. Initially, the price may seem high, relative to some competitive options, but its actually very fair when you consider the overall build quality, design and just how much heavy, food grade stainless steel and aluminum make up the Trailgater. (Go price aluminum and 304 SS at your local big box home improvement store.)  If forced to find something, about the best I can do is recommend some pulls for the quick release pins. The springs are strong, and the driver’s side pull is at a bit of an awkward angle because of how the tailgate is shaped. That’s easily, and inexpensively fixed a number of ways, from cheap carabineers to zipper pulls.  I’m just making some paracord lanyards.  My other suggestion might be some type of “stop” to prevent you from moving the cutting board too far in or out. Honestly though, it’s not a problem if you pay attention to what you’re doing, and I’m guessing an official fix from Doug would add cost, while making it harder to remove the cutting board for cleaning.  Therefore, the value-add from such a “stop” is probably not worth the cost.

 In Short

The Outback Adventures Trailgater is the Best of its Kind!  If you’re gonna do any sort of food prep on your tailgate table, or if there’s any chance your tailgate table might come into direct contact with food, bait, or the harvest from your latest hunting trip, then the upgrade to food grade stainless steel for sanitary purposes is a no-brainer!

Here are some shots of the Tailgater in use from a recent camping trip.

Thanks to the Trailgater and the AEV Rear Bumper carrier, my JK has pretty much everything – INCLUDING the Kitchen Sink, and the Kitchen Counter!!

My Outback Adventures Tailgater holding my monstrous CampChef Everest. It’s a big stove.

So, How Do You Get One?

I got mine directly from Doug at Outback Adventures, He’s a great guy to deal with, who clearly has a passion for the Jeep lifestyle, and is proud of his product.  I can tell he’s concerned with customer satisfaction. Hell, even the box it came and way it was packed were first rate – think Apple retail packaging.  You can call Rin over at OK4WD if you’re in the North Jersey, PA, NY area.

Special Thanks to Doug from Outback Adventures for working with us directly on this review for The Off Road Reference!