No piece of restaurant furniture is more controversial than the communal table. You either think it’s a fun way to meet new people and embrace the energy of a dining room—or consider it a nightmare of awkward social interaction and unwanted eavesdropping. Communal tables had a moment in the early 2010s, but the trend faced a backlash and then largely faded away.
Apparently Gen-Z is ready to bring them back. A new survey commissioned by the reservation platform Resy found that 90 percent of Gen-Zers enjoy dining at communal tables, compared with 60 percent of boomers. One out of three respondents said they’d made a new friend around a communal table, and one in seven claimed they’d scored a date.
Restaurateur Dante Datta, who has made a 20-seat communal table a centerpiece of his Indian street-food restaurant, Tapori, noticed that age split when the place first opened in early 2025, with young diners more open to the idea. Datta recalls an older customer walking out after accidentally booking the communal table. He then wrote a nasty Google review about being “forced” to sit there.
But Datta says patrons of all ages have become more amenable to the seating arrangement as they’ve gotten used to seeing it. Young families like the communal table because it’s easy to set up high chairs and strollers. And it has created opportunities for kismet. “Two people had served in the Peace Corps at the same time, at the same place, and didn’t know it until they were sitting at the communal table,” Datta says. “This happens all the time: Neighbors figure out that they live very close to each other. They end up connecting and becoming friends because of that.”
Restaurant designer Brian Miller of the firm Edit at Streetsense, who’s behind the communal table at Tapori, says it’s the right furnishing choice in only about 5 percent of spaces. And if a restaurant’s going to do it, the longer the better. “It has to be bigger than any one conversation can possibly be,” Miller says. “It has to feel like you’re not just having dinner with a few other people.”
More than strangers getting to know each other, Miller says, a communal table is ideal for seating large parties. In that case, it makes sense that the tables might thrive in a moment that’s all about vibe and creating a party-like atmosphere. “We’re in an era of restaurants that feel celebratory,” he says. “When it’s treated the right way by the restaurant, by the staff, when it feels like a special moment, then a communal table, when it’s full, can add as much to the energy of a space as a DJ.”
This article appears in the January 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind DC’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
