As empty nest retirees, breakfast and lunch are “on your own”. We eat dinner together - at the kitchen table (no dining room in this house) or at the table on the screen porch.
We cleaned out a portion of our basement to put in solar backup batteries. Half that stuff is still on the dining room table waiting for the great reorganization. Since we enlarged our kitchen which has both a counter on a peninsula facing the main work area and a separate table with a view through the porch of the backyard we us rarely used the dining room anyway. I have never sat at the peninsula but my son and his wife usually ate lunch there when they visited. We eat every meal at the table on the back porch weather permitting and the rest in the eating area of our kitchen.
My kitchen table seats 8 which just seems so big when there is just 2 of us most of the time. Dining room is set up for 6 but can be expanded so we often sit in there and the chairs are really comfy- it’s more of a casual dining room. There’s also the patio in good weather and the island for quick meals. I spent many years as a mom standing at the island eating lunch and breakfast so I’m done with that!
Like many here, we do our own breakfast/lunch but I do most of the dinner planning/cooking but we like to eat a lot of the same things. The biggest difference for me is my husband spent over 30 years traveling for business a ton and now…not so much. I was used to having some nights with very small dinner for me like a salad and making my kids something quick & easy but my husband likes a bigger dinner meal so every night feels the same now!
I’d like to add that before we sit down to eat each evening, we enjoy cocktail hour, with alcohol or not. This has been our habit for decades, and this is where we let the day slough off and start conversing about whatever. Often, cocktail hour occurs on the patio and includes DH grilling the main meal feature. We turn on soft music, make an appetizer platter (or just mixed nuts), clink our glasses, and catch up. This week at the cabin, I’ve been having lobster Bloody Marys (without the Tito’s as I don’t care for vodka):
It’s the civilized way to start the evening. DH traveled for so many years that, when he was home, we made our time count. Cocktail hour was one way to add a little fun to the evening, focus on each other and our adult lives, and prepare for a nice meal together. Even though we’re retired now and don’t necessarily need the transition, we still enjoy it. So, drinks on the porch tonight, feed the chipmunks a few of our nuts, grill some chicken, eat together at the small, rolling kitchen island, and perhaps have some ice cream down by the lake for dessert.
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Our kitchen is too small to eat in. I only prepare food there, but I do that a lot as we rarely eat out or order in. There is little counter space; the house was built before people had microwaves, bread machines etc.
We have a small dining room where we always ate meals when our daughter was growing up. As time went on the room morphed into a second kitchen/pantry of sorts; that’s where we keep our small appliances (microwave, toaster, bread machines (yes, plural), French presses, Mockmill, slow cooker, hand mixer) and where we store all our dishes, some larger pots, cereals and snacks. We even have a mini fridge in there where DH keeps his favorite beverages, condiments and jams and where he stores the bag lunches he prepares ahead for his work week. It’s a very functional room.
After DD went off to college, DH and I began eating supper at different times, since I preferred to eat earlier. I had not fully adjusted to cooking less food when DD left, so there were often leftovers in the fridge, which made for an easy supper. I typically ate while reading at the computer and he ate later on a tray while we watched TV.
When DH bought his laptop 5 years ago, he took over the dining room table as his “desk”. DD was still at college so it didn’t inconvenience us for meals. However, that spelled the end of our eating as a family in the dining room, other than special holiday meals.
After our DD returned home after college, we resumed eating together as a family, but in the living room, off folding wooden trays. Sometimes we chat but more often we watch TV or a movie. DH works long hours and he just wants to chill when he gets home.
But DH is retiring in a few weeks-- yay!-- and won’t need to “crash” so much in the evening. Maybe we’ll leave the TV off more often and converse.
Our daughter will move out to her own place within the next few years, and then DH will probably put a desk for himself in what is now her bedroom. I’d like to resume eating at the DR table then, at least when DD visits for a meal, as we will certainly want to converse.
Okay I live alone (divorced), don’t have a dining room or a table, and don’t have a tv. That makes me the outlier who often eats standing up, Well, to be honest, mostly eats standing up . Um, yeah, over the sink 
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Single here, and I have fallen into the habit of doing most things that others would do at a table on my loveset, feet propped, able to see the front porch and street. In my work years I’d be exhausted, and need my feet up after work. Now it is habit, though I walk miles most days and spend a lot of time in active gardening and on household projects.
But, I have both a kitchen table for 2 and dining room table where I do have folks over regularly, in addition to backyard tables for pandemic entertaining. If offspring are here, we have sit down dinners.
Dining room table is in the big kitchen - no dining room. Always sit at the table.
We were packing up S in May after his graduation and the first time in the house he had for 2 years and the dining room table was covered with someone’s clothes. On enquiry they had been there for a whole year.
Within the week the dining room table had gone and son says ‘where am I going to eat now?’
He had been sitting at the dining room table for every meal with junk everywhere.
I am not sure how I feel - pleased that he sat a the table to eat even though it had piles of clothes on it or sad that he sat at the table to eat every meal with junk on it 
I grew up with the family eating dinner during Walter Cronkite. My seat had my back to the tv. So my memories are listening to the news while my mother, father, and brother craned their necks to see around me.
Unless it’s being watched, I hate having the tv on. We have one tv in my house. When we still had cable, the cable guy came and asked where the other tv’s were. He didn’t believe we only had one.
If we are eating in front of the tv, especially with the kids, it’s usually a series or something informational. No movies, because my husband has to pretend he is always in a cinema with all the lights out and I don’t like eating in the dark.
Hubby is just getting over Covid (mild) so, as is the usual for summer, almost all our meals are outside on the patio.
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When the kids were home we always ate at the dining table. As empty nesters we eat at the kitchen counter or the dining table, usually with the TV on. If we are watching different shows I sit at the table where I can see the living room tv and he sits at the counter and watches the family room TV.
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No we don’t. My husband’s hours and mine usually mean that we don’t eat at the same time. Plus his diet has him eating a lot of things I don’t like and he just cooks for himself. So I usually eat in my office/craft room while watching TV and he eats on the coffee table while watching his shows. On weekends we will try to either eat together at the kitchen table or go out for one meal. It works for us.
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We are retired and we eat at the kitchen table…at different times. Our schedules are very different so we eat separately. I usually eat one main meal a day between 3-5PM and at those hours my husband is usually at the gym, meeting up with friends or getting his daily late afternoon coffee at Starbucks. I have dessert when he’s having his dinner.
I have to say, I feel a lot better knowing that we are not alone in not eating together! One the one hand, I’ve often felt bad about it even though it seems to work for us. We would have NEVER not eaten as a family (whoever was home at least and available) when kids were home.
To be honest, I think one “perk” of empty nest or whatever you want to call it is more relaxed meal time routines. I mean i loved all our family dinners and for the most part didn’t mind the routine of cooking them - and I still cook most times - but the flexibility we both have now is also very agreeable!
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Same here. We enjoy watching shows together.
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We could have a whole thread on “second breakfasts” that somehow become the last big meal of the day!
We don’t have a dining room, or have never used the room designated that as that. We have a kitchen open to a den type room and the “eating table” is there. And that table is the gathering place. When the kids are home sometimes we sit there and just talk, although often there is at least snacking. We’ve always eaten with the smallish tv there on. H grew up with tv during meals. I did not. I like to read while I eat if I’m alone or no one wants to have a conversation with me. Our kids grew up with tv on during meals most of the time. But mostly as background noise because I will have a conversation over it if I want to. So my kids know not to watch anything they really want to see while eating at the table if I’m around. When one son was home recently he and H and I got into watching Is It Cake (on Netflix?)while we ate. H and I don’t eat the same things so sometimes I’m cooking while he’s eating and we talk about our day, over the news on the tv, then he’ll stay and talk while I eat or he’ll do something else and I’ll read. If it’s nice I’ll eat at the table on our screened porch. H is not as fond of eating outdoors, or particularly hauling his food and utensils outdoors just to eat.
Long story into answer - yes we eat at a table!
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Nope. I could not maintain a healthy weight and eat what my husband does. Sure I could have a tiny portion of what he’s eating but I’d be miserably hungry. I eat a HUGE salad with protein 9 out of 10 nights that we eat at home. He has no interest in that.
Our college kids joked that we have gone down hill since they left ! We admitted to now eating on the floor using the coffee table as our dining table and watch a tv show.
Now that kids are home for the summer - we are back to the table and we are adjusting to being “formal” again. 
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Your life is bad ChoatieMom. 