How to Eat

The BBQ Pit
1

It’s come to my attention that people no longer know how to eat in large groups. We used to – our hunter-gatherer ancestors did it all the time, and history is replete with feast after feast.

Maybe it’s Americans’ penchant for “individuality” – I dunno. But it’s a lost art.

So to rectify this, I offer the following guide. This may not apply in the South, where an abomination known as “separate checks” has infiltrated the food service industry. I can’t bring myself to endorse such a thing, but if it’s the culture, it’s the culture.

But the rest of you no doubt have a friend who may benefit from instruction. So without further ado,
Dinner for 11 people

**Do: ** Check amount, plus tax, plus restaurant-included tip, plus extra tip on account of your ran the waitress ragged, divided by 11.

**Don’t: ** OK, who had the fish…

**Do: ** I’ve gotta leave soon, can we get the check?

**Don’t: **I’ve gotta leave soon. My entree was $7.25 – here’s eight.

**Do: ** Crap. I gotta go right now. It looks like it’s going to be about $30 or so – here’s $40. Pay me back next time if I’m over.

**Don’t: ** Here’s $12. I didn’t have any beer, and I just had a salad instead of an appetizer. Bye.

**Do: ** Look, we’re all over the map here in terms of who spent what. How’s about I spend some time with the check and figure it out.

**Don’t: ** You overcharged me! Do it again!

Do: Hey, I had the surf-n-turf. Let me throw in an extra $10.

Don’t: Hey, he had the surf-n-turf. He should throw in an extra $10.

Do: Are we over? Throw some to the waitress. She rocked.

Don’t: {consulting calculator} Hey, $377.85 divided by 11 is $34.35, and the tip is included. What’s this $35 crap?

Do: Folks coming to this dinner are all over the economic spectrum. Maybe a pizza or burger place would be best.

Don’t: I don’t care that half the group is out of work, I want to go to Chez le Ripoff, so we’re going there.

Wasn’t that simple? As it is with dinner, such is it with life. It’s all really quite simple if you let it be that way.

2

MANNY, I got no problemo with separate checks. If they’re, y’know, separate. I get my little check, and I pay my 12 dolla and my tip and life is happy for all – except the waitress who had to ring in eleven tickets instead of one.

But I HATE the parsing out of a single big check, like what you’re referring to. And it seems to be more prevalent among my fellow females. For Pete’s sake, ladies, just pay your proportionate share of the whole check, or toss in enough to generously cover your part, plus tip. It ain’t that freakin’ hard. But the whole “Who had the latte? I just had ice water. And I didn’t eat any of the appetizer, either. Does anyone have a calculator?” – I HATE HATE HATE it. With all due respect to our so-called fairer sex, we women IME are far more likely to be the transgressors in this than men are. I’ve never gone out for beers with a group of guys and had them spend 10 minutes at the end of the night going “who had the mircobrew? Because I only had Bud. And who ordered the peanuts?” But male of female, I second MANNY: Knock this off. It’s REALLY annoying.

3

Amen to that. Can I put in a rule for college kids eating at Denny’s or something like that?

Do: Check amount, plus tax, plus tip, divided by x number of people.

Don’t: Throw in singles for half an hour, keep adding it up and saying “We’re still short,” stare blankly at the rest of the table like a gutted salmon while everyone else looks down at their laps.

Seriously, don’t: Continue this for up to half an hour until Daowajan gets sick of your check games and throws in the missing amount just so everyone can get the hell out of there.

And if she throws in a 10 or a 20, don’t give her any goddamn singles out of the pile, thus depleting the money for the meal.

4

Chez le Ripoff is a excellent restaurant, you Philistine. Fuck the poor.

5

Heres how I handle it: Hand the credit card to the server and pick up the whole damn thing. If people want to toss in for a tip, fine by me. This works because I only eat with people who I would be willing to treat to dinner. The rest can ride pine.

May the mediocrity of several greeting-card salesman inhabit your soul like unmatched buttons in a empty mayonaise jar.

6

I couldn’t agree more. Where’s the dessert tray, by the way? I hear they do a killer creme brulee at this bistro.

Fortunately, everyone in my regular group agrees: single check, 15% tip (or more - we’re usually a group of eight or more) divided by the number of people in the group. All calculations performed by whoever the waitress hands the check to - no arguing. If I had chateau briand and you had pasta, tough shit. Next time you’ll probably have surf-and-turf while I have chicken.

For the sake of five or ten bucks on an evening out (because that’s what the difference from the mean usually comes out to), why go to the heartache of arguing about who had what?

7

Do: Budget appropriately for when you eat out. With tax and tip, it’ll probably work out to more than you think it’ll be.

Don’t: Go when you’re cutting it close. You’ll either stiff the waitron, your friends, or both. That’s not worth it.

8

Jesus, that’s low. That’d be the last time I ate with that gang of cowardly skinflints.

Look, people, if you don’t think you can afford to go to the restaurant everyone is planning on, then say something before we get there. We’ll find a place more to your liking. Pulling a scene of riteous outrage at the excesses of Western gluttony when you’re informed of the bill is a surefire way to get yourself uninvited the next time we all go out.

9

I agree with everything in the OP. Having said that, I will note that sometimes it can seem unfair to split the check evenly. But as Kamandi wisely notes, things will swing in your favor the next time. Especially if you drink a lot and order appetizers!

:smiley:

10

Er, that’d be every person under the age of maybe 22 that I’ve ever been out to dinner with. I think I’m going to end up just sucking it up, treating everyone and letting them haggle over the tip from now on. I get really tired of that kind of crap, even when I’m sure people aren’t intentionally playing some sort of holding-out game to see who gets fed up and picks up the rest of it first.

11

I agree with the OP, if you’re eating out with friends. If you’re eating lunch with co-workers, however, show me the calculator. I ordered the quesadilla specifically b/c I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on lunch. Hell, I didn’t even want to go. But thanks to everyone ordering appetizers, prime rib and cheesecake, suddenly my $6 quesadilla is “everybody chip in $18.” No fucking way.

12

I hate penny pinching snivelers. Split the damn bill and make sure you leave adequate money for the gst and tip. If you can’t afford to go, then don’t. If you go, eat, enjoy, then be courteous enough to leave a decent amount of money.

I’m a bit touchy on this subject because I work with a couple of people who constantly join other staff at lunch and at the bar and then breeze off without paying their share. I tend to put in more than my share most times because I can’t stand walking out of a restaurant knowing that the server got ripped off because someone has no manners.

13

I love separate checks. It’s a brilliant, brilliant idea. In fact, yesterday I was at a place where there was only one check, but the check was broken out and subtotals (including tax) were listed for each diner - so anyone could tell that diner 1 owed $8.43 and diner 2 owed $4.32, etc. But the waitress only had to deal with one check and the parties could divide it however they pleased.

But I detest the “lets just divide it by x number of people” thing. I always feel cheated, and resentful. It ruins the pleasantness of having a meal out with friends. I’m an exceptionally picky eater. Chances are, there is going to be only one or two things on the menu that I will eat. I’m not going to be having any of the barrage of appetizers, I’m not going to have 3 or four courses, I’m not going to have drinks continuously brought to the table. And next time it won’t be me who has the higher bill because it never is. If the people I’m dining with want the lobster salad, champagne, and hand-suffocated sea bass followed by orange-chocolate souffle, good for them. But I shouldn’t have to pay for it.

I don’t yank out the calculator, and I do always put in my share plus tax plus generous tip (assuming the waitron wasn’t awful), and a few dollars extra - I’ll even put in my part of a pitcher of beer (even though I don’t drink beer), but not the whole amount divided evenly. It might work if you’re above or near the average - but if you’re very far below, it really sucks.

14

DO - Take cash if you don’t want to pay by check or credit card.

DONT - Say “Oh shoot, I really don’t want to write a check, if you catch this one, I will buy next time.” especially if you never make good on this promise.

15

I feel more comfortable separating the food and booze bills – all equal on the food and the booze between those not driving, or drinking (perish the thought). Just seems more equitable to me, especially as the booze bill is at least as much as is the food.

16

DON’T: Watch me eat a plate of pasta and drink a water while everyone else eats steak and guzzles gallons of alcohol for three hours and then hand me a bill for $25. I budget my eating out funds to cover me, not to subsidize your buzz.

Why is that rude?

17

It’s rude because that’s usually not the extremes anyone’s describing. If ten bucks are really going to break you, don’t take the risk. This isn’t an event you should be going to. Do something else with these folks that doesn’t involve malleable sums, or don’t do anything with them - but don’t sit there and whinge.

18

Or, if it’s really worth it to you - you offer to figure out the bill. If you aren’t willing to do that, then don’t complain.

19

What I do is, after I finish up my stuffed ptarmigan breast and snark’s tongues in aspic and half-litre of Reisling, I go into a stall in the Men’s Room, and I wait in there with a magazine until manhattan gets sick of waiting for me to come out and pays the whole bill himself, and then I sneak out the back way.

Is that a Do or a Don’t?

20

Hey, I just had the small green salad. I don’t see why I should be subsidizing your meal of roast dodo stuffed with passenger pigeon.

<grabs the check>

Lets see…five plus seven, carry the one…