Kitchen bar makes handy place for serving meals

As every parent knows, an eating bar is a handy place to serve kids breakfast, lunch, after-school snacks and, well, dinner. In short, it's a really good place to serve the kids any food at all. Sometimes Mom and Dad even join in.

When guests come to visit, clear the barstools and use the bar as a serving counter for appetizers during a big game or a buffet-style brunch. This versatile kitchen fixture has replaced the passthrough in many designs, giving the kitchen a more open feel and the cook a better chance to participate in the action in the next room.

Snack bars, serving bars and breakfast bars vary in shapes and sizes. Some are angled, some are straight. Many are quite wide, but their petite counterparts are still useful as beverage counters and as a "holding" space for hot dishes that are about to be whisked to the table. The only real requirement is that the structure include a section that extends from the kitchen into the adjoining space -- often, the dining room, eating nook and-or great room -- and have an overhang of some depth.

The angled bar featured here provides an overhang deep enough to sit under and wide enough to accommodate four chairs. When the chairs are cleared away for a buffet spread, they're hardly missed because of the bar's attractive cultured stone peeking out from underneath. An added bonus? The structure is raised slightly from the main counters, which hides any mess in the sink from your guests' view.