WTF? The BG in your second example needs to stop being so wishy washy. The way is usually goes is:
BG: I’m having a birthday dinner at Grammercy Park Tavern. You guys are all invited.
Gang of friends: Awesome, see you there.
Result: Everyone pays for what they order, perhaps chipping in a couple bucks each to cover the BG.
Oh, and every time I’ve been out with friends, we have *always *paid for what we individually ordered. I can’t ever remember a time the bill was split evenly, unless we all ordered the same thing/all the dishes were the same price. It’s *really *not that difficult, as long as you can count.
It really doesn’t. And if it has, no one has ever said anything.
The separate checks vs. split evenly thing may be regional, or it may have more to do with the people you go out with. I’m from Los Angeles, and I’ve almost always split the bill evenly. The only times in my life I can recall everyone nickel and diming at the table, I was with my sister and her tacky friends who routinely try to dream up every reason imaginable to give the waitress a shitty tip. I don’t eat with them anymore.
I live in Minneapolis now, and I still always split the bill evenly. I’ve actually never gone out with a group and paid separately. Once someone tried to suggest it, but I grew irritated by the idea of the server trying to break apart food and drink orders for something like 10 people and said, “No. Just split it evenly.” We did, and no, I don’t remember what everyone had. Maybe someone had a Sushi Cosmo, but I don’t really care. What I do care about standing around while everyone reviews the receipts, tries to remember if there were three Scotches or four, who had the spicy queso dip, etc.
Jesus H. Fucking Christ! Way to miss the point, ass.
Show me where I can get a decent meal for two, for say, $80, which is clearly what villa was hinting at with the little, delicious places in Old Town. The point was NOT to spend $155+ and have a great meal. Also, have you read any of my subsequent posts, or have you been Googling this whole time trying to find pretentiously single-word-named places a places to refute my claim on this area being a huge strip-mall wasteland without many good but inexpensive non-chain restaurant?
The places you listed are over-priced trendy restaurants, all of which proudly serve $10 martinis. A good example of this is Firefly, which I’ve been to twice. The bill was $120 the first time and $135 the next, for two. The food is just okay – your standard tiny servings on huge plates.
Compared to cities like Boston or Miami or New York, DC is a culinary desert.
If it is the couples I eat out with most often, then we just rotate the bill. We probably eat out together once every three weeks or so, and there are three couples usually there, so it works out. We do the same with bar tabs too.
Otherwise, I’m in with the split evenly crew normally, though try to keep an eye out if someone is significantly below the rest. It always amuses me when a person insists on the check being split up as they ate less/drank less etc only to discover their part of the check is higher than mine. Or even if it is $2.35 or so less. That seems to happen very often when splitting a bill, but most of the time I will admit in my social circle either one person pays or we split it evenly.
Just want to put in here - isn’t asking the server for separate checks for everyone about the worst possible thing a table of customers can do, other than run out the door without paying? Every “I hate my job” thread emphasizes that servers loathe writing out separate checks for everyone.
If someone tries to suggest it, please don’t respond with “no, lets split evenly” - requesting separate checks is often an indication that they are intending on the cheapest appetizer on the menu and water, because they want to hang with you, but have a really limited budget. It doesn’t make any difference that you don’t care - if someone else in the group did. Don’t impose your generosity towards Ms. Sushi Cosmo on someone else, who may not be in a position to be generous.
If you don’t want to inconvenience the waiter (and they get paid for providing customer service) at least suggest splitting the checks out yourself. Its a lot more work for you, but there is much less chance of bad feelings.
Ten people go into a restaurant. They order drinks, apps, entrees - some of them order dessert. This is at least a $30 a person thing - even if its a pretty cheap place. That’s a $300 bill. That’s a $54 tip at 18%. And I don’t know about you, but I habitually overtip when its ten people, separate checks, and a hangout night.
Don’t undertip if you are going to have the waitstaff split the bill. But if they won’t split the bill, they really aren’t doing their job. Loathe the customer service aspect of your job, maybe you are in the wrong profession.
I’m far more concerned about the feelings of my friends I’m having dinner with than the server. And if my “friends” are going to screw the server out of a decent tip when he splits the check, I really don’t want them splitting the check with me.
Your “result” is by no means what everybody would expect from an “invitation” like that. What a lot of people think when they hear “I’m having a dinner and you’re invited” is “I’m inviting you to be my guest at a dinner that I’m hosting”. Consequently, they expect that the “host” will actually host the dinner, i.e., bear the expense of offering hospitality to her guests.
Like I said, this is why etiquette rules exist: so that people have a shared interpretation and shared expectations about what conventional social phrases actually mean. If you want to use conventional social phrases in a different way, fine, but it’s smart to make sure that your hearers understand what you mean by them.
I probably scored some Bitch Points for that, but rehashing the entire bill was ridiculous. If I recall correctly, we all were more or less doing the same thing. Some crab cakes here, some drinks crudely named after sexual positions there, lots of Jameson in my direction, and so on. Maybe someone slipped in a 25 year Scotch that I didn’t notice, but I don’t care.
Anyway, if someone is consistently Sushi Cosmoing to the point she earns the moniker Sushi Cosmo, I’ll probably stop going out with her because it’s obviously bullshit to run up a $40 tab and have $10 in your wallet. Likewise, I’m pretty sure if there were a person in the group who deliberately fed on bread sticks and nursed one glass of wine the entire evening, he was probably miffed that I declared myself Boss of the Table, and decided to stop going out with me. I suppose in the future I can bear to sit through people carefully examining every drink on the bill, but I will make an effort to avoid these kinds of people.
It really shouldn’t be. Barring a lot of shared dishes, most modern restaurant POS systems do orders by seat number anyway.
Servers do still complain, and it is more of a pain in the ass (especially as separate cheques means separate payments, which means running 8 credit cards instead of 1), but it’s not like it’s some hellish nightmare of them trying to figure out who ordered what.
I feel secure in saying that if you can’t tell the difference between that drink and the cocktails at PS 7’s, Bourbon, Proof, The Gibson, Bar Pilar, Cork, or PX, then yeah, you don’t have tastebuds.
By the way, do you think people can’t actually, y’know, go back and see what you posted previously?
This was your original statement:
Then DanBlather said this:
(I totally agree with him about Portland, by the way. Damn, Pok Pok and Andina, why do you have to be all the way across the country?)
Then you said this, in direct response to Dan’s comment (post #103, if you want to check):
So when you now say this:
You’re either being dishonest, disingenuous, or just plain dumb. Oh, and about the “little, delicious places in Old Town”? villa kicked it off by naming Vermillion, which, while good, is more expensive than at least half my list.
Incidentally, when I said that the list of restaurants in my earlier post was off the top of my head? It was. No googling necessary to refute your asinine statement that D.C. has no great restaurants for less than $155 for two people. (I completely agree, by the way, that D.C. lacks an abundance of good low-cost restaurants – say, $12 an entree – although it does have some. 'Twasn’t at all what you said, however.)
I’ve got to do some work, but I’ll be back later to go through that entire list and give you reasonable, delicious recommendations from each place, complete with a link to the prices on the menu. You know, because I’m a nice guy like that.
Vermillion is probably around $120-$130 for two, if you aren’t cutting corners. We got out a little cheaper because I picked from the restaurant week wine list (a good bottle of white bordeaux for $40? why the hell wouldn’t I?), and also we didn’t have dessert, although as a lot of friends of mine work there we had a little sampler of desserts in its place.
For anyone in the neighborhood, I would heartily recommend Vermillion. Excellent, well prepared food in a great environment. Living in DelRay, I have to say it is now rare I eat out in DC - unless I am going straight from work (or meeting a date that I don’t want to do on home turf).
A friend of mine lives in Del Ray, and on Monday she and her husband took me out to Evening Star Cafe, which is literally around the corner from their house. Great place! Too bad Dairy Godmother was closed by the time we got out, though.
Yeah, exactly – someone who says “I’m doing ____ at ____ restaurant and you’re invited” is giving everyone the impression that she’s hosting and thus paying. My second example, admittedly a bit waffley, was an attempt to come up with a version that during the discussion would be understood as more of a group effort, but after the fact could be shorthanded as “oh, she invited us.”
My point was that “invited” means different things depending on context. We can’t really judge what the OP’s birthday girl did without knowing the phrasing. (Not that the birthday girl herself was really the subject of the rant, but she was the target of some tangential huffiness for forcing everyone to go to Emeril Puck’s GoodTyme Family Feedbag at the MGM Grand.)
Following this logic, if the plan is to have dinner and then go out drinking and dancing, is it expected that the birthday girl or guy also pay for drinks the whole night, cover charges, and cabs home?
There is a difference between using a birthday as an excuse to get together with friends for dinner and offering to “host” a formal birthday dinner. Just because someone suggests something, doesn’t mean they are offering to pay. I guess it really depends on the norm with your circle of friends, but barring a formal invitation I’m expecting to pay my own way and probably chip in for the birthday person’s dinner.
No, but then the “invitation” should be expressed in a more casual way, e.g., “We’re all going out drinking and dancing, wanna come with?” Not “I’m having my birthday party at the KitKatClub, and you’re invited to join us.” The latter is much more likely to engender some confusion on the part of the invited person. (Unless s/he follows up with the natural question, “are we going Dutch?” or, more tactfully, “how much do you think this will cost, so I can take some cash out of the ATM?” If the birthday person is paying, s/he will say, “nothing, it’s my treat!” If not, s/he’ll say, “should be about $50 a person” or whatever.)
Of course any and all of these invitations would be less confusing if people would just ask and not be embarrassed about such things, but apparently being honest with friends is harder than one thinks. Might be a more delicate situation such as coworkers / not-very-close friends of friends, so you’re less inclined to be upfront about your quandaries.
For somebody who absolutely shit all over a poster, virtually laughing at what he considered high-end and expensive, you sure spend a lot of time calling other people “ass”.
It’s time for you to take a long look in the mirror and shut the fuck up.
