Small Breakfast Nooks

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Breakfast nooks are a cozy place to kick-start your day. It’s a more informal and easy-going alternative to eating your cereal and drinking orange juice at the dining table. It also doubles as an excellent location for a casual lunch or hosting a friend for coffee. If your home has modest square footage, these picks for the eight best small breakfast nooks seat up to four people, perfect for tucking into smaller spaces.

Emily Hilton Interior Design Expert

Emily is a young, talented designer, whose professional interests gravitate towards kitchen and dining spaces. She prides herself on her attention to detail, obsession with functionality, and appreciation for craftsmanship.

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Updated 04/04/2023

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Small Breakfast Nooks

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Morning is often a busy time, and for families where nearly everyone goes off to work or school and is gone for most of the day, the evening isn’t much of a slow-down. A breakfast nook can help keep the morning meal contained in the same place as meal prep. But a small kitchen might not have a lot of space for a breakfast nook.

How much space do you need for a breakfast nook?

It all depends on the number of people you want to seat comfortably at once. Generally speaking, you need a space at least 22 inches wide by 15 inches deep for each place setting.

How to develop a breakfast nook in a small kitchen?

The idea is to arrange a breakfast nook without interfering with the necessary paths for meal prep. Here are some ideas:

Small Drop-Leaf Table and Push-in Chairs

A small drop-leaf table with a pair of matching chairs that push in under it can provide a place to seat a couple youngsters or two adults for a fast meal before heading out the door. With the kitchen triangle close at hand, it is scarcely any trouble at all to rinse tableware so that it will be easy to clean at the end of the day – or even before heading out.

An oval table and barrel chair set with storage

If you love a good book with your morning tea, this is the table set for you! When it is not in use, this table looks like a wrap-around bookshelf. But it is really an oval table with a storage cupboard hidden under it, flanked by two barrel chairs that could easily also have little storage drawers under the seats. It is the perfect place to hide that steamy novel or to keep track of your great-grandmother’s hand sewn book of special recipes. Bold, beautiful and just a little bit sneaky, this table and barrel chair set will be the perfect complement to your morning tea and crumpets.

Gate Leg Table with Matching Stools

No time, no space, no problem. A cute little gate leg table provides a hiding place for two stools, and the gate leg drop leaf adds enough space that you can set out both the honey bear and the sugar bowl, as well as your plate of pancakes and favorite morning drink. When breakfast is done, the leaf can go down and the stools can be stashed under the table, making it a spare bit of counter space.

How to arrange a breakfast nook without a table?

Some kitchens are so tiny there isn’t room for a table. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t plan for a good breakfast. Dedicate a little counter space to a toaster, a drip percolator, and a pair of cold cereal dispensers. If it’s close to the refrigerator, so much the better because your milk and juice will be handy. Add a stool or two, and you are good to go.

Breakfast is said to be one of the most important meals of the day because it fuels you up for the hours ahead. But it can also be the meal where the dishes are left to set for eight to ten hours, making it one of the messiest meals of the day. Add a small microwave to hour breakfast mini-bar, and keep frozen breakfast burritos on hand to gain some morning protein and cut down on cleanup.