Thanks for the clarification. I’ll see your apology & raise you one.
Sorry for the STFU.
My home away from home. I am in the bar of the Evening Star 2-3 nights a week. I probably know your friends. Freaky. Although I admit I wasn’t there Monday night.
Vermillion is owned by the same people as Evening Star. Both are great restaurants. What did you have?
As choie says, it would depend how the arrangement was made. If the BG says something like “I’m inviting eight guests for dinner at Gilded Snails and dancing at Club X to celebrate my birthday, I really would like you to be one of my guests that evening, please can you come?”, then that would imply to many people that the BG has indeed made arrangements to host the whole evening.
If the BG wants to arrange a pay-your-own-way get-together with friends instead, there’s nothing wrong with that and it’s not hard to do. They just need to word the suggestion differently, as for example “Hey, what say we all go out together for dinner? What do you think about trying that new place, Gilded Snails? You know, I’d really like to go dancing at Club X afterwards; anybody else up for that?” The way to make it clear that you’re not volunteering to pay for the whole party yourself is simply to treat it as a cooperative outing that other people have an equal say in, rather than as your own particular party where you’re entitled to make the decisions about where to go and what to do.
Oh, by the way, according to usual etiquette conventions, people who attend a party pay for their own transportation to and from the venue, whether it’s a pay-your-own-way get-together or an event hosted by one of the participants to which the others are invited guests. So no, the BG doesn’t spring for everybody’s cab home even if s/he is hosting the whole evening.
All of that is absolutely true. That is why we have etiquette conventions about what kind of phrasing implies what kind of situation. “I’m having a dinner party and you’re invited”, according to those standard conventions, means that the inviter is offering hospitality to the invitees and doesn’t expect them to pay their own way. “Let’s all go out to dinner”, on the other hand, means a cooperative get-together.
And by the way, “I’m having a dinner party and you’re invited” doesn’t necessarily imply a “formal” birthday dinner, if I’m right in thinking that by “formal” you mean “fancy and snooty”. It is just as “proper”, in etiquette terms, to invite people to be your guests at a backyard barbecue or at the local clam shack as it is to invite them to be your guests for a six-course black-tie dinner with service a la Russe and four wines at a renowned French restaurant.
You’re right that the meaning ultimately depends on the customs that prevail in a particular social circle. But to be on the safe side, when dealing with people you don’t know well enough to assume that they follow all the same customs you do, it’s best to avoid words like “invite” and “guest” when you initiate a social event where you want all the participants to pay their own way.
In my experience with this things, I usually don’t have that much control over the guest list - I’m not the instigator (avoiding the use of the word host). The guests likely to pull this are not my friends, they are friends of friends. And I’ve never seen them before and unlikely to ever see them again.
I had the carpaccio, the sirloin with yucca hash and chimichurri sauce, and a pomegranate-mango-chocolate Red Bull cosmopolitan.
Nice.
Am I the only one who thinks a pomegranate-mango-chocolate Red Bull cosmopolitan sounds kind of good?
I certainly hope so. 
Well let me know if you are planning ever to be there again. I’ll stand you a drink, though certainly not a PMCRBC.
There is no such thing as polite society. It’s a made-up term by social elitists who want to think they are better than everyone else. When you are in the upper class group, it’s fine. When you are not, it is not.
Determining actual etiquette involves finding what your particular social group expects out of you. So-called experts on etiquette are usually not in your social group, and, thus, their expertise counts for nothing.
Because this keeps coming up, let me throw in my own two cents as a former waitperson.
Separate checks for 10+ people can be annoying, and as a server, I did bitch about them in idle work-gripe conversation. The preferred alternative I had in mind, though, would be a single-check, single-payer arrangement. Of course I (and most servers) understand that that isn’t always possible, but it did make my day whenever it happened.
If everyone is paying their own way, though, all that is accomplished by pretending to put everything on one check is leaving room for the assholes (there’s always at least one, and usually a few) to skimp when putting their “fair share” into the pot. This, in turn, leaves the last few people at the table to cover the amount of the check, and the server’s tip becomes a function of the generosity, guilt, and financial means of these remaining customers, which is pretty much never a winning proposition for anyone involved…the customers, because they rightfully don’t want to (or can’t) cover the tip for the whole party; and me, because I don’t want to guilt anyone into paying more than their fair share, but I don’t want to work for free either.
I’ve never worked at the four-star or Michelin-rated level, but I’ve worked in most every class below true fine dining, from sandwich joint to sports bar to fifty-dollar steak. The number of times, in my experience, that the single-check, multiple-payer “pot” system has resulted in my receiving the total amount of the bill plus a reasonable tip, was zero. For that matter, the number of times this system resulted in me receiving the total amount of the bill at all was one; thankfully, setting the ~$5 change from the ~$400 tab back on the table with a smile and thank-you clued the party members in that they might wish to recalculate.
If everyone is going to pay separately, then as a server or a fellow diner, I’d vastly prefer separate checks. It keeps everyone honest, and avoids innumerable awkward situations and social faux pas…and if the server knows what’s good for his bottom line, he’ll save any complaints for anonymous message boards.
Don’t most places add a mandatory gratutity (15-20%) on large parties? It’s legal an enforceable as long as it’s printed on the menu.
Some do, some don’t. In my experience (which, again, wasn’t in fine dining), most of the places that have it don’t enforce it unless the manager is particularly conscientious.
I should also clarify my above post: when I say that the “pot” system never once produced the correct amount for price + tip, I meant that it never did this the first time. It generally got straightened out in the end, but inevitably with unnecessary anguish both social and financial on the part of everyone involved (at least, everyone who wasn’t an asshole).
Huh, I agree with Kimstu and Dangerosa. Who’d a thunk it? I’m still wearing my Aloha shirt though.
And can we please get off St. A.'s case here. He was an invitee. He did not pick the venue, he did not pick the other friends. He has every right to be annoyed by the folks that showed up way late and ruined the evening. He paid a lot of money for what he thought was going to be a nice night out celebrating with a friend. The night turned out sucky for any number of reasons but mainly because of the the folks that showed up late with lame excuses.
WTF difference does it make what TV Chef’s place it was held at?
“Polite society” is a polite way of saying “people who don’t act like assholes”. And it’s generally assholes who think that not acting like an asshole is for “social elites”. IOW, people who think it’s funny to act rude, obnoxious, drunk and/or stupid and then say “common where’s your sense of humor?” when someone gets offended and calls them on it. And FWIW, using etiquette to embarass people is also “acting like an asshole”.
The whole point of etiquette is not about proper pinky finger placement. It’s to facilitate social interactions so no party is left saying “man that guy was an asshole” on their way home and then complaining more about it on a message board.
[ul]
[li]Showing up hours late makes you look like an inconsiderate asshole.[/li][li]Eating a meal beforehand makes you look like a cheap asshole.[/li][li]Complaining about the meal or service makes you look like picky asshole.[/li][li]Dressing like a slob to a fancy restaurant makes you look like a sloppy immature asshole unless you are actually cool enough to pull it off.[/li][li]Not putting down enough money to cover your share of the bill makes you look like a cheap asshole.[/li][li]Sending an invite to a restaurant outside of everyone’s price range makes you look like an pretenteous asshole.[/li][li]And finally, expecting the person who invited you out to dinner to pay for everyone’s meal makes you look like a cheap, clueless asshole. I have NEVER in all my years of dining out with friends in cities all over the planet expected the person who initiated the dinner to pay for the entire meal, nor have I even heard of such a thing until this thread.*[/li][/ul]
Some places will indeed add a tip for parties of x (usually 6) or more.
- As previously mentioned, there are exceptions. Business or family dinners. Or if I am visiting and staying in your house for the weekend, I may take you out for dinner. But as a general rule, everyone pays separately.
Well, you can INSIST all you want that we split the check evenly, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to obey. I will mentally add up MY bill, tack on about 30% for taxes and tip, and give you that much. PERIOD. I hate hate hate getting stuck for a large portion of Steve and Sally Sleezebag’s order of Hand Fed Elk Truffles in Dom Perignon, washed down with a bottle of 1869 Bordeaux.
Been there, done that, ain’t doing it again. I pay for MY meal.
Oh, and part of the Birthday person’s meal.
That depends. I’ve gone to events where the group was split neatly down the middle; it really should have been two separate groups.
One half of the group had normal weeknight dinner food (one dish and dessert) and didn’t drink alcohol. The other half of the group had three or four dishes per capita, aperitifs, a different wine with each dish plus champagne and herbals after dessert; several had dessert twice.
The first group said “each pays her own” as soon as they started seeing the Martinis. The second group tried to claim it would be easier to just divide. The first group took out their calculators (Thee Shalt Not Attempt To Outcalculate Engineering Students) and said “no problem, we’ll handle it!”
This happened several times in different locations and with different groups. And even if I’m the only person not drinking alcohol at the table, I refuse to pay for other people’s half a bottle of JD with the steak.
Note: in Spain “separate checks” is pretty much unheard of, the look of panic in the poor waiter’s face is seriously not worth it. You pay and then, if you wish to split it, you split it however you’ve decided to.
When you come to my funeral, can you at least make it an understated aloha shirt?
It occurs to me that the driving force behind this change from “Host pays” to “Everybody Pays” is that the default is no longer to mainly entertain in your own home.
Because, children, that’s what most people used to do. Back when. A wife would have her friends over for an afternoon of cards and tea – she’d supply everything, but one of the other women would host the next get together.
Ditto for dinner parties – the host supplies everything (except the guest might bring a dessert or a bottle of wine or whatever), and the guests, being nicely socialized, would reciprocate with an invitation to their own home sometime not too distant.
Now it seems like home entertaining has gone away, except for broke college kids/recent graduates throwing booze get togethers and maybe people having a single large cocktail type party for the holidays.
It makes a huge difference financially. Taking two couples out to eat at a restaurant can cost hundreds if you go to any place better than Dennys. OTOH, buying an extra couple of chickens and fixings needn’t add more than, oh, $20 to your grocery tab.
Times have changed, manners had to in response.
Yeah, see the general assumption when I’m out with a group of friends is that we are ordering entrees of approximately the same cost, sharing the various bottles of wine or ordering drinks at roughly the same pace. You don’t go to Del Friscos and be the only cheap idiot ordering a salad while everyone else is ordering martinis and filet mignon.
And you know what’s great about my friends? They all have at least a high school education so they can all add, subtract, multiply and divide. So if you are the person who orders too much or too little, we can adjust your share of the bill accordingly.
As I said in a similarly topiced thread - I usually don’t put a price on friendship…and yet here we are…