I find the width more telling than the depth. Cubic feet of storage stats can be misleading. It's not the volume that matters to you, but how much of the volume is useful. Do you have a lot of big bottles? Juice, milk, etc? Do you buy a lot of packaged foods that are easy to stack? Or open baskets of berries, tomatoes, etc., that need more shelf room and nothing on top?

My mother fed a family of five from a 36" wide, freezer on the bottom, built-in SubZero (shallower than counterdepth) with no problem, but did keep her old fridge in the garage for overflow. Mostly things like beer and sodas, platters for parties, and sacks of potatoes. And that was with the milkman bringing glass bottles of milk at least half a dozen at a time. The whole top door shelf of the kitchen fridge was milk bottles. (I miss the milkman...)

And I know people who feed a family of eight out of a fridge about double the size of a bar fridge. But they don't have cold beer. :) They shop more often, though.

Short version, no, cd fridges aren't too small for families.

We have had an Amana CD side-by-side fridge for 12 - 14 years, but bought it after we became empty nesters. Hubby finally got tired of the old one sticking out so far and partially blocking the 36" we have between counter and island.

The CD could handle a family of five, if I went to the grocery store twice a week, which I usually do anyway, even as empty nesters.

It depends on the families and how they shop.

I think CD is fine for the average family of four.

But If you love love buying everything in massive bulk at Costco you may need more room than a standard 36" fridge.

If you like buying everything fresh and eating it within a few days then a 36" CD fridge is ok for a family of 6. Buy your meat fresh for the day at the local butcher and veggies from the farmers market? Some people like that have an under counter fridge in Europe.

I totally agree with plllog--it's about the width, not the depth. Also the configuration. A 36" French door or single door SubZero (rightly noted to be even shallower than CD) is a very different animal from a 36" side by side one. We have a 36" SubZero FD and we have plenty of room for the two of us and for all five of us when our kids are around. And we like to make Costco runs every two or three weeks, so we go from really full to almost empty. We have no overflow fridge or freezer. The only extra space I could use would be additional freezer space.

On the other hand, my downstairs neighbor has a 36" side by side SZ and needs to keep an overflow fridge in a small spare room. She hates that fridge immensely. The narrow 36" width combined with the side by side configuration makes things very difficult.

So again, the depth is not the issue in my opinion.