large booking at restaurant- how to split the bill?

splishsplash

burnoutbabe wrote: »

what do people do when they have their £10 but some bright spark pipes up "lets all pay for the hen/birthday person" etc.

Say no?

(i do think its very rude to suggest this, out loud at the meal, but then even if suggested before, its hard to say no to it anyway, so you'd just have to refuse to go)

It's standard practice in my world to pay for the guest of honour. I would find it rude if they had to put their hand in their pocket at all.
I would expect to pay towards their bill when being invited. If I felt this was beyond my budget I would regretfully decline the invitation.

Jagraf

splishsplash wrote: »

Really? Most of the restaurants I go to are small but very busy - very busy - and would certainly not be impressed by a request for separate bills, especially where a large party is concerned (as in the OP). They wouldn't the till system in place to allow it. I couldn't imagine even asking. If someone was determined to divvy the bill up, the least they could do is their own algebra.

A large party suggests an occasion. You are attending the occasion, so why not pay for the occasion. It's a bit like booking a group of concert tickets and trying to pay less because you don't want to hear the supporting acts.

This reminds me of my brother when we were young. He borrowed a pair of my earrings for a fancy dress and lost one, so offered to pay for half of what they cost :rotfl:

Pollycat

mumps wrote: »

We went out recently with a group of friends, we all just split the bill. Neither of us drink alcohol, never have, and I think over the years we have probably done alot of subsidising but haven't worried about it. Anyway on this recent meal one couple's adult son was home visiting so he came with us, no problem he was a student we would all just split the bill and cover his, have done it before for various kids. I noticed he picked the most expensive item on the menu and had starters and pud, that's OK. There was wine on the table, red and white and we had soft drinks. I saw him speak to a waitress and a drink arrived. When I saw the bill he had ordered a double brandy and it was quite expensive, well it seemed it to me but I guess alot of alcohol seems expensive to me. I thought that was taking the mick and I won't be falling for that one again. We aren't hard up and I think if he had offered to pay for his drink we would all have said it was fine but it was calculated and sneaky.

Who decided you would split the bill as usual even with another adult in the group?

If I had been his parent I would have been pretty embarrassed as I too would have felt he'd taken advantage of my friends and I would have insisted on paying for his meal & drinks myself instead of letting him freeload on my friends.

JasX

If the large group is several family units then the per-family thing seems a good shout.

Depending how on the ball your friends are my current preferred system is get everyone to 'pay what they think they owe including tip' into a pile in the middle. Then have someone count up the cash, fortunately with my regular social groups this pretty much always works out (rarely a little under might result in a call for £1 extra from everyone, more often than not it's a little over so we either just leave a slightly more generous tip or take the surplus to the next venue if going on somewhere for the first round of drinks)

if it's a big group a lot of restaurants will force you down the set menu route too (£x for 2 courses or £y for three) which helps splitting and drinks can be done separately.

Pollycat

missbiggles1 wrote: »

My husband was never a big eater but his appetite went further downhill in the last 6/9 months of his life, although he still enjoyed going out for the (very) occasional meal with me or a couple of friends. However, he would never have spoiled the occasion for everybody else by sitting with nothing in front of him while everybody else felt guilty because they had decent appetites.

He always had the same number of courses as everybody else, eating a few mouthfuls of each course and enjoying what he was able to eat. That's the polite, thoughtful way to go about doing things - being part of the occasion, enjoying what you can and not spoiling things for everybody else.

So my friend should order a starter because I'm having one, even though she'd prefer not to.
She'll eat a couple of mouthfuls to be polite.

I'll order a pudding although I hate them and eat a couple of mouthfuls just to be thoughtful.

Quite bizarre.

Jagraf

Pollycat wrote: »

So my friend should order a starter because I'm having one, even though she'd prefer not to.
She'll eat a couple of mouthfuls to be polite.

I'll order a pudding although I hate them and eat a couple of mouthfuls just to be thoughtful.

Quite bizarre.

I don't think its bizarre - in my experience most people agree on which courses they will have and go with the majority. I prefer a starter and a main, but if most want a main and a pudding I will go with that. If I'm full after my main I will have something less filling, or a posh coffee.

duchy

Tipping is another minefield and probably worthy of a thread of its own. I expect to tip if the service is anything from acceptable to excellent and when the service is good and someone refuses to chip in their share of an appropriate tip claiming they don't believe in tipping it tends to annoy. Usual solution is the rest of the party make up the shortfall and the next meal the tip refuser isn't invited in the same way someone who is rude to the wait staff wouldn't be invited again.

onlyroz

splishsplash wrote: »

Really? Most of the restaurants I go to are small but very busy - very busy - and would certainly not be impressed by a request for separate bills, especially where a large party is concerned (as in the OP). They wouldn't the till system in place to allow it. I couldn't imagine even asking. If someone was determined to divvy the bill up, the least they could do is their own algebra.

It's very simple. When you arrive you tell the waiters that you will be ordering as separate family groups. I don't see how this requires any special till software.

Spendless

mumps wrote: »

We went out recently with a group of friends, we all just split the bill. Neither of us drink alcohol, never have, and I think over the years we have probably done alot of subsidising but haven't worried about it. Anyway on this recent meal one couple's adult son was home visiting so he came with us, no problem he was a student we would all just split the bill and cover his, have done it before for various kids. I noticed he picked the most expensive item on the menu and had starters and pud, that's OK. There was wine on the table, red and white and we had soft drinks. I saw him speak to a waitress and a drink arrived. When I saw the bill he had ordered a double brandy and it was quite expensive, well it seemed it to me but I guess alot of alcohol seems expensive to me. I thought that was taking the mick and I won't be falling for that one again. We aren't hard up and I think if he had offered to pay for his drink we would all have said it was fine but it was calculated and sneaky.

I suspect it is experiences like that, that made the barman/restaurant owner tell us to go to the bar and order our drinks separately or if served at the table pay for them there in order to keep the drinks off of the food bill where I dined in a big group a few months ago.

Re- separate bills. When I ate out last month (at Pizza Express!) The waitress was late returning to our table to take the order. She apologised and said she'd been held up by a group wanting separate bills. She said they did not allow this when customers were sat at the same table. She then told us, that the party had each paid in cash. I couldn't work out why they couldn't work out who had had what by the itemised bill if they all wanted to pay separately in cash anyway! I only had a card on me and was then concerned how we'd split the bill as I was paying for me and my daughter and the other two were paying for their own. Fortunately what they let us do was me pay for my share of the meal on card to reduce the overall bill. I had made a mental note of the price when we'd ordered, which I then tallied with the bill, not to the penny, but within the next pound or two. I wasn't dining5 with friends/family. It was the teacher and assistant teacher of an out of school class my DD attends, and we had been at a relevant event together until the end and needed something to eat.

SingleSue

PasturesNew wrote: »

I had a look.

Put me down for the Trinidad Curry Chicken at £9.70. No starter or dessert for me, nothing's that tempting. And two halves of cider. I'll bring £15.

Mine would be the very boring salad with no hot stuff added on, not because of price but because I cannot stand spicy or hot food.

Or I would just decline the invitation.

Looking at those prices, I wouldn't say they were expensive either that or our local restaurants are very expensive!