Restaurant group meals – splitting the bill or just paying your own share?

Went out ladt Friday with a group i volunteer with. We all paid for our own. No-one in the group can afford much - my bill for the night was £14 in total.

The last time I went out for a group meal the restaurant refused to accept cash so we all had to pay separately, which took forever. We didn't include a tip either as the service had been poor.

Nowadays with the way restaurants are computerised, they can give people their individual bills. Just tell the staff what you had eg burger, salad, a Coke and coffee and their gadget tots it up in a flash.

There’s no need for people to subbing other people’s food and drink choices.

I lunch fairly regularly with friends. We each tot up individually for what we have had plus a pound each for a tip, people pay cash . When the bill arrives we always have enough sometimes too much! People pay for their drinks as they get them . Always works well.

The first time this “equal split” happened to me, I was very young and poor. I paid my share very resentfully especially as I had had nothing expensive and one of the others had had lobster and several glasses of wine. I have tried very hard after that to pay only my own consumption!

If I go out with just a couple of friends we just split it, say, 4 ways and it’s no problem. Not so easy with 16.

I read that thread and it seemed that some of the group deviated from the group's norm of having dinners that were about £50 per head split equally. Instead several behaved in an excessive way by ordering main courses that were £95 each and bottles of wine! So the OP of that thread's £40 (£25 main plus drinks) order became a bill for £110.

I think that splitting can work if you are all like-minded and order approx similar things but it can be very embarrassing for people who are short of money to be forced to subsidise the frivolous ordering of others having cocktails, bottles of wine and the most expensive dishes on the menu. I have been out a few times in London back in the day where it was really awkward for people who had tried to keep their bill down feeling forced by group pressure to split equally.

Where I live it is totally the norm that people pay their own bills and the waiter keeps track on the little handheld computer.

Serveral times a couple of us got stitch up at works outings, when those who left early just left the money for what they had but as there was 10 or more we ended up with having to pay the service charge for large groups or the tip. We caught onto that eventually.
When we go on a ladies weekend, we contribute to a kitty.
My close friend just devided regardless of what we had.

BlueBelle

I got stitched up twice with a group some unknown to me and all a lot better off they had alcohol and afters and more expensive firsts and i got a far far bigger share of the bill than what I d eaten but I wouldn’t be caught again
Different if I’m taking my children or grandchildren out for a meal
When I meet up with my school friends or even just one or two friends we always each pay for ourselves Seems normal for us

Same here.
If it's family it's different.

Otherwise pay for our own; we went to lunch the other day, DH and I had a main course but the others just wanted a light meal as they were eating later. It wouldn't be fair to expect them to pay for some of ours.

There is no "rule" about leaving the table before the bill is settled if you leave the appropriate contribution to a tip and service charge. Its easy enough to ask what the service charge was and determine your share. Never heard such rubbish.

Aveline

I was once stung by people doing that and ended up having to pay the £70 shortfall. Everyone just put in what they said they were due and left. Selfish sods.

That happened to me too and I wasn't even drinking alcohol.
When I got into work on Monday, I read the riot act and said I wasn't going to be out of pocket and they should be ashamed of themselves! .They coughed up!

These days we all pay for our own. We have a friend who always used to drink more and eat more expensively and we got sick of subsidising him. Another thing was if we all put a tip in he would then pay by card the correct amount - and keep the tip! We used to make jokes about it but really, it wasn’t funny.

This happened to me when I was an academic on my first contract. We were a group on a conference trip to Italy. One lecturer was invited as a guest and brought his wife along. They ducked out early from a group meal and did not leave enough for the service charge and tip so we all had to pay extra. There was bad feeling about it.

The next day I called them out about it in front of the group. They could have claimed it was an oversight/misunderstanding and aplogised. Instead they were angry and defensive. The male said "Well the uni reimburses all our epenses anyway so what does it matter." I pointed out that in order to be reimbursed you have to have the money up front to spend. Three of us were on a research associate/postgrad budget and could not afford to subsidise those on much higher salaries. My boss, who was in charge of the group, intervened and said "I think Biglouis has been a but blunt but I agree in principle. Some of the group are on a strict budget and those of us with more disposable income should be aware and take some responsibility."

Having been put in their place by the professor in charge the couple got up and left. They kept to themselves for the rest of the trip and sat separately on the plane back. They were never invited to another departmental function.

As a student, we quickly learnt that some would order expensive drinks if it wasn’t their round, or if we’d paid into a kitty, so PAYG became the norm.
At staff outings we pay upfront for what we’ve ordered on the menu, + a tip contribution. Anything else, e.g. bottles of wine, drinks, extra coffees are pay as you go. That way you can leave when you want.
For family we either pay the lot if it’s a treat or each branch pays their own.

With family we take turns to pay the whole bill. I dont drink so if it's a meal with alcohol situation then pay individually.

Oh that’s such a difficult one. I don’t drink alcohol and don’t want the most expensive things in the menus like steak and lobster. I have paid for other people to enjoy these things in a split bill but now I will pay for what I have had and let them pay their share.
It’s never easy and I avoid going out with people I don’t know well who I know are great drinkers and lover of the finest of foods!

Good for you Marydoll, I'm glad you shamed them into paying their fair share.

I'm happy to share the bill plus tip equally, Saves a lot of mental arithmetic.
However I take care to choose my friends , who I know wont order something excessively more expensive than most of us.

I meet up regularly with 9 others for lunch. We take turns in paying … 2 people pay so it not a lot at one time. So my turn with one other is every 5th lunch. We usually have a set meal… some drink wine others don’t but we find this the easiest way!

When a large group of us, twenty odd, the pub/restaurant bill us all separately which is brilliant.

Very civilised Glenfinnan. The best place I ever went to in a largish group was one we went to a few times for GN lunches. Somehow, magically we were all given individual bills. The waitress had plotted where each of us was sitting and what we'd ordered so was able to do this. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else. I suspect that it was a savvy waitress rather than any fancy hi tech solution.

I’m sure I have told this one before on here.
For many years whilst we had young children a group of neighbours of mine, all young mothers, would go out about three times a year, one being just before Christmas.
One always had to be different in her choices of food and wine.
She always chose Mateus Rose which none of the rest of us would drink so the whole bottle was hers.
She always waited until everyone else had chosen their main course saying she was making up her mind, she then always chose an expensive fillet steak in a sauce, at that time the most expensive thing on the menu.
On of our party , a lovely young woman didn’t drink but never queried splitting the bill equally.
On the last occasion after the meal we ordered and waited for coffee , she went to the loo.
When the coffees were brought to our table there was a large brandy on the tray.
Oh that’s for me she said , she had gone to the bar and ordered it without saying anything or asking if anyone else would like anything.
We let her get away with it but it was the last time I went with them.
It stopped very quickly after that.
Quite away from the food and drink, her H ,much older than her who seemed to worship the ground she walked on bought her a mink jacket.
She always wore it on out outings and would always seek out owner/manager and ask for it to be put in their office as it was far too valuable to be placed in the cloakroom.

She sounds a real pain in the neck annsixty. It's amazing you all put up with her for so long.

I have always paid for my own food and drink in a restaurant except in the case where everyone in the party ordered within the same price range.

I remember there was a tendency to "split the bill" in my student days, but this was rightly seen by most of us, as one or two improvident members of the group cadging on the rest of us, so we insisted we all paid for precisely what we had ordered.

I do not go out to eat with people I am not familiar with - so I am comfortable telling the party that each pays his own, because some of us don't drink and don't order fancy stuff. That having been said, if it's someone's birthday, we split the cost for that person. Also, someone pays the whole bill, then we all pay that someone, because it's faster.