I don’t see anything wrong with taking your friend out to a fancy restaurant if you think he will enjoy the food there. I have friends who are wealthier than I am, and friends who have less money. None of us cares or keeps tabs on who spends how much on meals out. We enjoy each others company.
You could always buy a $200 gift certificate to the restaurant, tell your friend you got it as a gift from your boss or a vendor or a customer, then tell him you’d like to use it for both your dinners when he’s in town.
Take him to the restaurant you want. What he does to reciprocate is up to him. I long ago gave up trying to control other people’s behavior, and life is a lot easier that way.
Be careful, he may try to steal silverware.
Actually, that makes it a lot easier. If you’ve raved about it and took a mutual friend there then yeah, take him. Just insist on paying for it.. and maybe by the time you visit him the situation might be different. –
Or when you do visit him, if he takes you out to a really expensive place, you can act like you forgot that you paid for all of the dinner this time, and insist that you pay half of that dinner.
Edit: Wait, a 100$ entrees? Don’t take him unless you’re sure he remembers you raving about it and your mutual friend told him you took him there.
I’d be very uptight about not having the proper clothes but I’d never tell you that. I’d get sick or something. Then I’m female. Just saying.
As far as this:
I’m assuming you mean out of reach in his current financial situation.
Is there a place by him that has a good reputation but isn’t pricy? Maybe a really good ethnic place like a great dim sum place or a really good German restraunt? Maybe if you did a little reasrech you could find someplace and then when he offers to take you out you could always pipe up “You know - I’ve heard really great things about New City Shanghi! They’re supposed to have the best xiao long bao and I really want to try them!”
In terms of food, not much. In terms of the restaurant itself, it can be a great deal.
I’ve never felt rushed at an expensive place. The staff is not trying to turn the table over; the way they generally are at, say, Denny’s. They let you take your time–naturally, the prices (and resulting tips) in the expensive places account for the fact that their tables turn over slowly.
In addition, I have found that the higher the prices, the quieter the place. Sure, there may be muted Muzak playing in the expensive places; but generally, they are not as loud as Applebee’s, Friday’s, Swiss Chalet, or other less-expensive restaurants.
But I would suggest to the OP that he take his friend to the restaurant of his choosing. This is an old friend whom he sees rarely; I’m sure they have a lot of catching up to do. They don’t want to be rushed, nor do they want to be in a situation where conversation may be difficult due to the ambient noise. OP, go to the expensive place; and if the conversation turns to reciprocity, reassure your friend that if he insists that it’s on him next time, that you get to choose. That way, you can select a place that you know will be within his means. (You can select based on something other than price–for example, “It’s a great sports bar, and the big game that we both want to see will be on.”)
Spoons (how appropriate!), you just reminded me that I hate chain places. Look, the OP (who is coming off as a jerk here) can just check reviews and find a calm place with good food if that’s what he’s looking for. I just can’t imagine that ANY restaurant is worth making your friend feel like shit. And he can’t be that close of a friend if he had to come to the Dope for help.
I guess so! I’m known as “Spoons” among my in-person friends as well, and have put up with a lot of good-natured ribbing because of my name. (For example, “Hey Spoons! Fork you!”)
You did not make it clear whether you are paying for both of you, if not you could create a really embarrassing disaster where your friend either eats nothing but a salad or tells you point blank you have to leave and go elsewhere.
Springing a $100 obligation on someone out of the blue is not cool.
If I was the friend, I’d rather go to some less expensive place that has good food, rather than some fancy ass place that has stuff I probably won’t recognize or like. The point is to spend time with an old friend, and that can be done for a hell of a lot less than $100/entree. Doubly so if you know he will want/feel obliged to reciprocate in kind next time. Your life is not his. You don’t want to make him uncomfortable, so do something in his price range.
You could find some place in your friend’s town that is inexpensive and has good food, and mention that you would really like to try it. That would give him a way to reciprocate in a way that he knows will make you happy and won’t be beyond his means.
The way the OP was worded, I think it was implied the OP would be paying for both of them.
I agree that it’s very rude to take someone to an expensive restaurant without warning them about the prices ahead of time if you’re NOT paying for the guest’s meal.
Here’s a solution: take him to the fancy place, but arrange to have the kitchen serve a mediocre meal and pay the waiter to ignore you. Then apologize profusely to your friend, who gets to feel a little smug because your hoity-toity restaurant was a disappointment. Then go get a pizza.
Take him to the ritzy place. When you visit him and he tries to reciprocate beat him to the punch and pay for that meal too.
+1
Lines like “I’m really excited about this! Its great food and its only by you!” work and they are 100% truth. Tell them that the gift certificate has an expiration date & you might not be able to use it the next time you’re in town (also true). There are a dozen ways you might have gotten a gift certificate too. A raffle through a club or religious organization, buying a chance for one of your co-workers who has a kid & is required to sell things for school, or even a prize from a business card drawing. Find one that matches your lifestyle & commit to it.
But this is the small stuff; the trick is to both be there, enjoy the food/drink/atmosphere and have fun now that the pressure is removed. Please Have Fun!
Tell him the truth. ‘‘I was thinking about going to this restaurant and treating you to a meal, but it’s very expensive and I don’t want you to think you are obligated to reciprocate. I just think we’d have a really great time together. If you aren’t comfortable with that, we can go somewhere else.’’ It really is that simple.
Something not quite as extreme happened with me and my friends recently. We were invited to come up and stay the night with some pals of ours who have a house and a fairly high steady income. At the time I was unemployed and my husband is still in grad school. I said we’d love to come, but we couldn’t spend too much money, so we should stick to low-key activities. They said they’d treat us.
And that’s basically what happened. I think we paid for about half the stuff we did and they paid for everything else. And my friend said, ‘‘We really have no problem treating you guys, because we understand you don’t have as much money and it’s really no big deal to us.’’ And we said, ‘‘We want to at least pay for some of the stuff so we can retain some sense of dignity.’’ So we ended up doing what was comfortable for both of us.
Let him correct the pronoun problem in your thread title, and feel all smug and superior to you on that basis. Then tell him you’re rewarding him for teaching you about correct case use by taking him out for a big expensive dinner.
Thanks guys. FTR, I am paying for both of us, and that was the plan. I know I come across as a jerk in the OP, but well, better to do so in an internet forum where I am anonymous than when I actually meet him. I think, I will bite the bullet and take him there. Its a wonderful experience and he will enjoy it. Deal with reciprocating issues later.
In that case I’d say don’t worry about it, what he does is on him.
How good of friends are you guys anyway? In that situation I might wonder if you had the hots for me or something.
Nah grude order whatever you want, you’re worth it.