Um, read the posts after. Because I live nowhere near Alexandria it didn’t come to mind. I admitted that it slipped my mind. What else do you want?
No, I don’t agree. Nobody in the dining party was the least bit confused about the fact that everyone would pay for their own dinner, as far as I can tell. It had nothing to do with why everyone was extremely late & inconsiderate.
What about Falls Church? Nothing there either?
Just Mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel, as far as I remember
Someone should actually send this thread to Etiquette Hell and see the reaction.
Question – I believe awhile ago (in the “milk in a bar” thread), the person who told the story also mentioned someone having a cash bar at their own wedding. Would THAT be considered okay, now, since everyone’s supposed to pay their own way at a party?
Georgia Brown’s, one of my absolute favorite DC restaurants, is possible to get out of for significantly less than $150 for two for two courses and a bottle of wine.
I’ve never seen that Etiquette Hell site before. It is so nice that Dr. Laura has found another pursuit in addition to the radio show.
Since it seems that there are fans of that site here, does it strike anyone as ironic that the comments I found from the blogmaster appear to be from such a raving asshole? At least Emily Post and Miss Manners are polite to their readers, and cover criticism in humor and wit.
This happened to me just this weekend at the birthday celebration of an acquaintance and her friends, and much to my chagrin I handled it like a passive-aggressive jackass. My table’s sushi-eating-Cosmopolitan-drinker lunged for the check and announced to the birthday girl, “It’s okay, we are taking care of this”. Though the birthday girl was one of only two people I knew at the table, experience had taught me what was coming next but I was still pissed when Sushi Cosmo turned to the rest of us (six in total) and asked, “We’re splitting this six ways, right?”
This chick had two appetizers and an entree, ordered wine of her choice and insisted on a second bottle, then had dessert and specialty coffee – she was, by far, the most expensive diner at the table. I had an entree and a cup of coffee and declined the wine, a fact pointed out by my two friends. Sushi Cosmo sighed and made a big show of whipping out a calculator and trying to figure out how to leave me out of paying for the wine and desserts before dramatically giving up (it was like something out of a “how many times has this happened to you?” infomercial demo) and noting how much easier it would be to just split it. At this point the birthday girl and I were mortified so I said, “Look, I’ll be happy to pay for wine and desserts for the birthday girl … and her friends” and threw down “my” share, paying for almost three times what I ordered.
It would have cost me less to say, “Let me cover the birthday girl and you guys can split the rest between you” (which, in hindsight, I wish I’d done). I know, I know – I’m petty and small.
St. Anger, why don’t you just go ahead and name names on which particular restaurant this is?
Oh hell no.
But I’m also one of those “you invite you pay” weirdos.
I’ll take it! YUUUUUM!!!
I’m the same. In retrospect, whipping out your own calculator (cell phone) and taking the check and saying “you’ve been drinking, let me…” is probably the way to go, but I seldom have the nerve. And the way these dinners have gone for us is that the bill comes after half the people have left dropping their generally insufficient contribution on the table (to give credit where credit is due, occasionally in cleaning up the bill someone will have left behind twice what they fairly owed).
This year we handled this event (we have one annual thing where this happens - and one I can’t blow off) differently. We brought our kids. We showed up fifteen minutes early. We ordered fairly quickly. We were having our entrees delivered before half the party showed up (late). We specified a seperate check (for us at least) when we sat down. And, with the kids in tow, we got up when we were done eating and making small talk, made our excuses to the birthday boy (people were still showing up - two hours later, and there wasn’t room at the table…kids are tired anyway…) and wished him maximum felicitations on his birthday, paid just our check, and left. Its possible his boorish friends stuck someone else (probably him) with the bill. But this time it wasn’t us.
I’m not sure what I have to “come clean” about, why is this information so important to you?
They think you think Applebee’s is a chic restaurant. Was the teevee chef de cuisine you speak of one Tyler Florence?
I’m slightly baffled at what people consider to be good restaurant etiquette. I think this deserves to be restated because it was 100% correct:
As for this:
Dear God, no. Frankly, if you can’t afford to split evenly, then don’t attend the event. If my meal is an expensive outlier, I offer extra. Nine out of ten times my offer is rejected. In the rare case that my costs were significantly less than the proportional share, I split evenly and refuse any offer to reduce my share.
This has come up in my group of friends when the evening starts with an expensive dinner. We usually have post-dinner plans that are less expensive and give people the option to join us for dinner or join us later. If people are worried about the cost, they skip dinner and come later.
Obligated, no. But it’s a nice gesture and I certainly would have offered.
This must be a regional thing. I have never, not ever, been out for a meal and split the check evenly. If it’s one of those “organized” dinners out with no specific host, whoever is seated first says “separate checks” so the wait staff knows how to keep track. If we do the inviting, we pick up the whole check. If someone else did the inviting, they would pay the whole thing.
From what I’m hearing in this thread, this is unusual. I think I like our way better though. There’s nothing to discuss or argue about. Split evenly just sounds like it would lead to hard feelings. No thanks.
I absolutely, positively, 100% DETEST even-split. The assholes who get multiple apps or sushi, multiple expensive bottles of wines or cocktails are always the ones who say that OBVIOUSLY we’re gonna do an even-split!
No, fuck you.
This isn’t really standard etiquette, and people come out extremely strongly on both sides of this debate.
Personally, my preference is that people pay approximately what they owe, without earning course credit in applied accounting over dinner. The reality is, the light eaters are the light eaters and the heavy drinkers are the heavy drinkers, and it’s damned rare for the roles to reverse, so the same person is always getting fucked over. Of course, this plan requires that everyone be marginally generous, rather than anyone being stingy so that the bill and tax and tip all get adequately covered. Either that or the calculators have to come out.
I’ll go along with splitting things evenly if that’s the consensus or if we’ve all spent half the meal eating off each others plates (which is typical in some of my dining clubs) but if someone has just had a salad and a cup of tea, and I’ve had two glasses of wine, then I’m going to suggest we split the bill a little more fairly.
Often this ends up taking the compromise form of ‘everyone who had drinks puts in X’ and ‘everyone who didn’t have drinks puts in Y’, which tends to keep things a little more even with a little less accounting.
I live in Manhattan and have lived in or around there for most of my life, so my perception is definitely localized. Separate checks to me just seems like a lot of extra effort for both you and the servers. What do you do with the bottle of wine or the shared appetizer? When we order another round of drinks, I can imagine the annoyance if that required an adjustment to six or seven different tabs.
Picking up the whole check is not a reasonable expectation for a group at a nice restaurant. For six people, that could easily ring up to over $800.
If that is what they think, they are obviously dense, since I pointed out at least once if not twice that the restaurant was not a chain, and is reservations only. That rules out Applebees.I am going to guess that 80 pct of the so-called “culinary experts” ripping me on this thread get all their info off the Food Network, have never paid over $50 for a dinner, and can’t even afford to eat at Applebee’s.