large booking at restaurant- how to split the bill?

Pollycat

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Does your husband know about your disgust?;)

Sure he does.

Feral_Moon

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I've never had any problem sharing in a variety of restaurants and in several different countries. Particularly with puddings it's quite common to ask for one portion and two spoons.

I agree with this. I rarely order dessert after a meal, I'd much prefer a coffee instead or liqueur if I'm not driving. But invariably the waiter always beings an extra spoon so I can gave a taste of the dessert my dining partner has ordered. Sometimes I oblige, depending what's on offer. I see nothing wrong in it. Similarly, we sometimes share starters if there's more than one dish we fancy and have half each.

lazer

I am amazed at the number of people who think the bill should be spilt and people should order more food than they want so everyone has all the courses.


I will often ask for a peppermint tea instead of a desert.


If I eat a starter, rarely finish my main and definitely not 3 courses. Although this depends on where I eat - in many "posh" restaurants, I can easily eat 3 courses and still be hungry. In many country pub restaurants, I can't even finish the main course!


I think a relatively simple, but fair way to spilt a bill is:


Remove the alcohol and spilt between the drinkers
Remove the soft drinks and spilt between the soft drinkers
Remove the starters and deserts, and divide by the number of them, then everyone pays for however many "extra" courses they had
Spilt the remainder equally.


IE:
10 people out - bill is £200.


Alcohol is £50 (8 drinkers so £6.25 each)
Soft Drinks - £6 (2 non drinkers - £3 each)
Mains/Deserts - £44 for 11 dishes ( £4 each)


Main Courses - £100 (£10 each)


Therefore non drinkers pay £3 plus £10 for main course, plus £4 for each starter or desert
Drinkers pay £6.25 plus £10 for main course, plus £4 for each starter or desert


Although I have learnt a valuable lesson on this one, was driving home later that night, so had one glass of wine, and finished up paying about £20 for alcohol as was classed as "drinker", so don't have any wine with my meal now, as its easier that way.


As an aside I don't understand people that won't go out if they can't drink due to working the next day, can't afford it etc.


I go out plenty and drive and drink appletiser - a lot of time people don't even realize I am not drinking, to me about socializing, not drinking.

Jagraf

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

Not me. Infact, if you were one of my friends, I'd much rather you came out and didn't miss out. Then again, it wouldn't be a problem in our group, as we always just pay our own way anyhow.

When we went out with work, most of the men drank ALOT and one or two of the women weren't too far behind! There were huge variances in people's total bills.

Oh in my friendship group we just talk about it and choose an occasion we could afford equally, we just say if we are skint. we never miss out. I was talking about pre arranged stuff.

Although personally I don't think I've ever really seen that variance with work colleagues - those who want to get trashed go off by themselves.

missbiggles1

PasturesNew wrote: »

That's a Group A situation though: Family/friends, close. You'll have chosen, across many conversations (and subsequently years) that you're happy to do what you're doing.

What if you invited your neighbour to come too? A Group B person within a Group A dynamic. Should they have then paid 1/4 of all the bills?

Why would you go out for a meal with your neighbour or anybody you didn't know reasonably well - it just seems such an unlikely scenario to me?

I'm genuinely puzzled, on one hand you say you don't mix much but then you talk about sharing food with strangers, it just seems so illogical. (That isn't meant to be critical, by the way, just genuine puzzlement.)

Person_one

Jagraf wrote: »

Oh in my friendship group

Are you only a member of one discrete friendship group though? Do you never get invites where its a newer or different group of people or includes some 'extras'?

Peter333

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I certainly wouldn't take anything off someone's plate unless invited but I think it's quite common (among friends) to offer someone a taste on your fork.

Ewww, no never! :eek:

I am not OCD or anything, but no way in heck would anyone be eating off my fork. I have never ever ever been out for ANY meal where people eat off each other's forks.

That's just gross. Even my family don't share a fork, let alone colleagues/friends. It's just so unhygienic, and it seems like very poor etiquette.

So, no, it's not 'common.' And I don't think that you will find many people agreeing with you.

onlyroz

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I think it depends on where you eat. The idea of a starter is to excite your appetite, not to slake it, just as a pudding is to round off a meal rather than be something enormously rich that leaves you feeling sick.

I think there must be lots of people here who envision eating the same size portion for their main course as they would at home, in which case,obviously another 2 courses will seem excessive but, IME, restaurants don't don't serve food in domestic quantities because people would rather have the variety that comes with multiple courses rather than just one big plateful.

Again, you're making assumptions about what people would "rather have" and about how much different people can eat. Even in a "fine dining" place where the portions are small, a 20-stone man will likely want to eat more than a 9-stone woman or a 4-stone child.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

PasturesNew wrote: »

They must be super thick!

It doesn't take long to tot up what you've had. You round it all up to whole quids... not the pennies.

Starter £4.25
Main £7
Dessert £5.20

I'd say I owe "about £17" - and I'd chuck down £20 to include any tip that anybody perceives there should be.

15 seconds per person. Job done.

It's often not clear on the bill what's what, and annoyingly many people don't bother to look at or remember the price on the menu. I always know how much my meal will be and add a decent tip.

When I was a povvo student, nobody bought rounds and everyone was used to splitting meals by individual orders, and divvying up cab fares. I remember the first time I went out for a meal with work colleagues and assumed the same would apply, and put in enough for my vegetarian (always cheaper) meal and soft drink plus tip. I then had a juddering moment of discovery when realising I was expected to put in enough to cover the multiple bottles of wine at the other end of the table. Well, you learn a lot about other people when you stop being a student.

onlyroz

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Why would you go out for a meal with your neighbour or anybody you didn't know reasonably well - it just seems such an unlikely scenario to me?

I'm genuinely puzzled, on one hand you say you don't mix much but then you talk about sharing food with strangers, it just seems so illogical. (That isn't meant to be critical, by the way, just genuine puzzlement.)

Have you never been out with a group of work colleagues? Or attended a conference? Or gone on an excursion while on holiday where you are put on a large table with a bunch of strangers? Or maybe been invited to a birthday party of a distant relative? Or perhaps met up with some old school friends you haven't seen in 20 years? Or maybe met up with a group of friends who have invited along some other people that you don't know too well?