Both the room or space set off from the kitchen and the furniture sets which have created an informal eating space for American families without servants, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Dinette sets include tables and chairs of metal or Formica scaled down from the formal ostentation of the dining room. The dinette became a place of morning coffees (often seen in soap operas), children’s activities and other informal meals, as well as a background for more formal events. By the 1990s, the kitchen service-counter often replaced even this space for informal meals.