Comments on: Table for Seventeen: Group Dining Musings

By: Caz

Caz — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:00:00 +0000

Hi! new commenter here.
Personally, I generally prefer to split a cheque evenly between all the people paying (that way everyone can equally pay for the birthday person’s meal if such is the case) but I also see both sides of the scale.
I’ve had people haggle down to the EXACT penny of dividing the b-day person’s meal plus what they ate, and refuse to pay for shared table appetizers etc. because “they didn’t eat them” which pisses me off.
But I’ve also gone out to big group meals (10 people plus, whom I didn’t really know) and one or two people drink their faces off ordering shots, bottles of wine and multiple $15 cocktails and then want to split the tab evenly when I’ve sipped one glass of wine all night and ordered a salad not the fillet mignon.
But overall, with people I know well, splitting evenly is the easiest method.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:00:00 +0000

My friends and I generally take turns picking up the check. Things always seem to even out, and generally if someone suggests drinks or food that’s pricier than our “norm,” they’re the one that grabs it that time. We’ve never really discussed it, but it’s just a pattern that my group has fallen into, and it works for us.
When I lived in Chicago, my friends and I used to split almost every time. Everyone would throw their card/cash in, and if someone’s was much more or less than an even split, we’d write notes on the check to help the server out.

By: Cate O'Malley

Cate O'Malley — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:00:00 +0000

Usually we just split the check unless there’s major uneveneness in one direction, be it mine or someone else’s.

By: Shani G.

Shani G. — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:00:00 +0000

Having had a brief stint as a waitress in college (I was very untalented at the vocation!), I can sympathize with the plight of the waiter. I don’t like to split plates because a) I like to use the leftovers in a meal later, sometimes cooking up something entirely new, b) I keep thinking about the waitstaff who has to stay there all night putting up with grumpy customers. When it comes to a large party of people, I’m fine with separate checks, though. I often tell my mother that times are different than when she was my age and a young wife and mother. My father was already pretty established when they got married, and the overall lifestyle was different in the late ’60s/early ’70s. Now it is often a necessity to have separate checks in a large party as it takes longer for couples to set themselves up, financially.

By: Irene

Irene — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:00:00 +0000

We tend to split equally, although I think rules of good behavior dictate that if you had twice the food or twice the drinks of other people, you should just pay more of the bill. As far as splitting food, I would not do it at an very good restaurant because the chef means for you to taste the food the way it’s coming on your plate (the flavors and quantities are balanced), but there are many restaurants which serve large, family style plates, and I love sharing at places like that.