Retract-A-Gate 52" Café: The Original and only Made in USA Retractable Baby, Dog, & Cat Gate

Highly recommend these gates. We had the traditional metal gate. It was a pain to use and it looked ugly in our main living area. We have a split level - so many staircases. I was able to buy a stairway post kit (Amazon item #B004CEN62O) which allowed me to mount to the staircase post without drilling holes. If you go this route, know that you will need a post mounting kit for each post (they are sold individually). I ended up going to the big box store and buying a piece of wood, painting it black and using that for the other post since I didn't learn about the post mounting kit till later. Both methods work, just depends if you want holes in your posts. The gate is sturdy and retracts down to a small footprint. I like that when they are retracted, they take up little space. It's easy to open/close and lock with one hand - perfect when carrying a little one. It has good height and the locking mechanism is very strong - won't budge when locked. It also has safety certs and is made in the USA. Highly recommend supporting this small business!

I have two dogs, one is a 30 lb dachshund/doberman mix and a 12 lb chihuahua/poodle mix. I have purchased about 4 baby gates overall. Overall review of the 4 gates I have including this one: Baby metal games that has a door that swings open. 2 of them were the metal gates where you open the door. I had the gates at the bottom of our stairs to prevent the dogs from coming up. However, my 30 lb dog gets really anxious and figured out how to jump the gate. If he can't jump the gate, he will inflict self harm until he can get past it. So we decided to put the baby gates on top of the stairs. The dogs won't dare to jump it at the top of the stairs. We had to buy a taller one to prevent him from jumping. The metal gates are not safe on top of the stairs because the walk through entry is narrow and it has a bar at the bottom that's a hazard for someone to trip over and have a horrible accident down the stairs. Fencing gate that stands upright on its own. This one we had "hoped" that the dog wouldn't just push over. But it's easy to knudge to the side and walk through. Mesh retractable baby gate (this one for purchase). I don't like drilling holes on the walls or the stair banisters. Instead, I used tons of 16 lb command strips to hold up the hooks on the wall (Make sure the command strips is placed on the wall and unused for at least 24-48 hours before attempting to attach the gate on it). I used velcro ties to hold up the baby gate on the stair banister. So far, it has worked great! - It's been over 6 months now. The dogs haven't attempted to go under or over the gate. - It retracts easily so that you don't lose any walkway space while going up or down that stairs. - The white mesh sort of camouflages with the white stair banister so you barely notice it's there. - Doesn't easily get dirty (actually haven't had any issues with dirt or dust on it) - The only small issue I have is when we first started using it, it's a bit tricky to align the baby gate to the bars, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy to use. - When putting the baby gate up, make sure you lock it so that the mesh doesn't auto retract. It's also good to prevent the dogs from pushing it (if they do) because it doesn't give any slack to allow them to crawl underneath. I haven't tried it on any kids yet, but that will be soon!

Our home has some unique construction and I wanted to find a gate option that would fit just how we needed it to. I was prepared to have to endure clunky, unattractive gates in the name of safety. When I came across this option, I hoped it would allow perfect fit where we needed it without imposing a clunky presence in the home -- and boy has it delivered! I'm hardly an install whiz but I had no trouble getting this in (they fit great despite me at times deviating from instructions because I was installing it solo and had some awkward areas to work around). We have two so far in 52" but I'm getting a third in 72" plus an extra set of brackets (ordered direct from their website, great customer service there by the way) so I can extend the gate either across the hall or across an entryway to living room. The cafe color looks great with our neutral/taupe walls, when retracted you hardly notice it at all and when connected it is semi-transparent but very neutral; as much as we love baby and parenthood, it's so nice not having the house feel taken over by baby gear! Our very active (not so) little one will often push against it while standing and it holds up great. In short: Love it, absolutely worth the price. Allows custom fit and lets your house still look elegant while being safe for baby. High quality, safe, American-made, and great customer service.

I love this gate and highly recommend it to anyone who does not want to fuss with a plastic or metal gate or trying to figure out how to store it when not in use. I have a new baby and 2 dogs (a 6lb and a 45lb dog) and this gate has made life easy. I could see where dogs might be able to get through it but my dogs are trained and obedient so they have never tried to get through. When we installed it, we installed it close to the floor so there is no gap at the bottom. This gate is expensive, maybe a little over priced but I think it is worth it. I babysat for a family with 2 rambunctious boys and they have had their gate for 6+ years and it still holds up well. Definitely seems better than the similar Gates I researched. Would give it 5 stars if it wasn’t so expensive!

This gate is FANTASTIC. Highly recommended. Great quality, absolutely worth the price. I stressed so much about how to safely gate our stairs since pretty much all child safety experts all say you should never use a retractable gate for stairs, but in our home no "hard" swinging gate would work due to a very narrow hallway and the placement of several opposing doors and openings. I found this one and it totally lives up to its claims than when installed per the instructions it CAN be used safely atop stairs. Per the instructions we made sure it was installed 6" back from the stair edge, so even if a child pushed hard against it they couldn't somehow slip under it. You must be sure to lock it for safety -- it's not automatic -- but we found even as sleep-deprived and stressed baby/toddler parents it quickly became muscle memory to always lock it. Installation instructions were very clear. We did need 2 accessory kits (Retract-A-Gate Wall Spacer Set and the Retract-A-Gate Stair Banister Kit) to make it work for our house, but they both also worked perfectly to handle thick baseboard trim on one side and a post on the other (see photos). It's so great that it's not obtrusive when not in use, without a big gate to trip on or bump into or hit the walls or anything. Plus, the "reel" that stores the gate when retracted can be easily removed if you need the space like to move furniture, or to clean, or for a long period when you don't need the gate. It has held up in great condition, still looks like new and works smoothly. Our kiddo is now 4 and we actually still use it at night just as an added deterrent to keep her from wandering downstairs. While she is tall enough to reach to unlock it, it would take her some time to fully undo it, and the noise doing so would alert us.

I researched a lot of these gates, as you really need to do your homework so you don't order a piece of junk with a depressingly short lifeline. I have two German Shepherds and a baby on the way, so I needed a good way to segment off portions of my home for both safety and sanity. First of all, I was a little hesitant about these not being a prime item, but it showed up in a few days nonetheless. I felt that important to note. The install was quick and painless, other than moving the mounts once or twice since I didn't bother with the directions and just threw it up in the doorway. Either way, it took about 5 minutes and I was a happy camper. The hardware mounts seemed a little cheap being plastic, but they really are rigid and do the job well. If it's retracted, you barely see it and the entire thing is unobstrusive. It actually looks nice. Extended, the security is dead solid. It has very little give. It also has the ability to swivel a bit if you don't have perfectly parallel angles. One handed operation as promised and simple to open and close. The dogs don't feel cut off from the pack due to the shearness and it detaches quickly if you ever need it to. The price was a little bit on the high side, but I'm glad I went with USA made. I helped my people and got a damn good product for it. If you're looking at the $50 or $60 dollar similar models like I did, we all know you're taking a gamble due to the country of origin and you'll be fighting to get your money back in a week. All in all, perfect rating for quality, ease of use and effectiveness. Just ordered another. Thank you for caring about what you build and sell, people like myself depend on the quality.

Where this gate is, we have to mount it almost a foot above the ground because our cats need to get to their food, and going under is much easier for them. This goes out to our laundry room and garage, so we are in and out of the house through there multiple times a day. The rigid gate we had before kept getting kicked as we walked over it, or worse, a few times we fell into it with the baby, tripping over the center piece. We needed a different solution, and this is it for us. It's perfect, stays out of the way when we don't need it, and when our 20 month old is free in the house, he walks up to it and helps me shut it, knowing that I'm going to do that in order to let him run around. Now, he's not able to actually hook it, but he's helpful and starts pulling it out of the side. We have to remember to lock it, but I mean, beyond that, it's really handy. I don't have a good hang of how to do it with one hand, but I've seen videos, and it's possible, but it's difficult to get the right angle and into both hooks. Installation was a breeze (but do devote an hour just in case you need to work at lining it up, etc.), and we really enjoy it. We have a different rigid, folding one at the top of our stairs, and I don't like it as much. That one doesn't click into the base very easily, and sometimes it looks like it's in but isn't. This Retract-A-Gate works soo very well, I could see us replacing the one at the top of the stairs with this once we start letting him free upstairs. Thanks for reading.

It’s the first gate we purchased so I don’t have much to compare to, but we’re happy with it so far. It’s very nice to not have a gate in the way when our baby is asleep or we don’t need to use it, and the quality is very good with an easy install. We’re going to purchase a few more for the rest of the house, and other than the high price that might not work for everyone, I can’t imagine anything better and couldn’t recommend this more!