My husband and I are in moving mode.
Looking for our next place is interesting - there seems to be some differences between what we expect and "the normal layout of the land" in how important the dinner table is and where it should be located.
One difference seem to be that we actually use our dinner table. At least twice every day - and here during work-from-home more like three times.
We know people who don't even have a dinner table - and we wonder how they survive.
Naturally, there are plenty of valid alternatives. Perhaps you have a high counter and a couple of bar stools. Or a sofa. Or people eat in their respective rooms.
Food will be eaten somewhere.
Communal eating - as a family - is close to sacred to Danish families while, apparently, not happening in a lot of American families. It is important to know ones priorities as the calendar otherwise easily fills up with little league, scout meetings, piano lessons, after-school activities...
Both ways are fine - but it should be a conscious decision. We can't create childhood memories after the kids have grown up.
This short video contains a lot of the reasons Danes and other Scandinavian families meet around the dinner table.
Notice, that in the movie the table is round. That is chosen for effect. But whether the physical tabletop is round, rectangular, or super ellipse, nobody sits at the proverbial head of the table. Everybody gets talking time.
My children refer to these many evenings as their "Dinner Table MBA" because everything can be discussed: the history of summer saving time, politics, news from ye ole country, their parent's latest startups, differences between cultural norms...
Please put phones away - it is also listening time.