Always one bill, but there is one group of people I go out with very occasionally where they do the split checks. So that's like 2-3x a year.

NYC, mostly young professionals, some grad students. Typical dinner is prob $30-$50 per person after tax and tip, but there's no splitting checks at expensive dinners either.

Typically it's just split evenly, if there is a large difference we'll figure out who owes what, which is a very short process. Last night one guy only had an Amex and the restaurant didn't take Amex so he had someone else pick up his bill and just sent him the money on Venmo right then.

the types of places 25 year old college grads go to. tmac almost weekly. went to taqueria tsunami last week, basically the $$ places. say 4-6 people usually. obviously we arent getting wine for the table or anything olds do like that.

separate just seems by far the most practical. the waiter server usually asks "are these gong to be separate", say yes, and then each person pays for what they order like you do in the rest of life.

No, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're going to a place where one of your friends is stuck ordering off of something like 10% of the menu and needs to sacrifice things like drinks/appetizers. That seems kind of crappy to me.

If you have a friend that can only afford a $15-$20 meal I feel like you should go to a place that caters to that. In reasonably sized cities you'll have a bunch of places to choose from.

One bill, two credit cards, usually pay equal amounts. Boring olds, almost always two couples, average bill $50-$100/person. With work groups (engineers) for lunch, it gets a bit more dicey, but typically we'll throw in equal amounts of cash, possibly with someone putting it on their card for the points.

Regarding the diverse income/wealth groups, it seems fine for people who are trying to manage expenses to pay less. It also seems fine for those who have more money to treat/host more often in those groups.

No, there aren't a lot of college students. It's that people here have an aversion to embarrassing people just because they're poorer.

The only places I've ever been that don't have options that are double other options are one price for all type places. Even going to a McDonalds, a person on lower income is likely to spend like $2-$3 while a person on higher income is going to spend like $6-$8.

Although the fact that you used $15-$20 as your range is telling since most people in this country can't afford to eat at such a place. But regardless, I have never heard of a restaurant where all meals fall into a $15 to $20 range of pricing. But even then, the poorer person is going to be more likely to order that $15 meal while the wealthier one will order the $20, so the poorer person is still getting screwed.

I always get one bill as I don't want to hastle the server. I'm actually a server as my second job at an olive garden and I can tell you that one bill is more common. But not by a lot.

He just described a place that caters to that

One check. I live in DC but lived for many years in LA and for three in Minneapolis. If with gambling friends, CCR is mandatory, and I actually got a number of my professional friends to start CCR as well by arguing that it's EV-neutral. I typically go out to nice restaurants with my boring old rich-guy friends.

During my Honeywell years, there were no nice restaurants near my office and we were often pressed for time, so we tended to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings or one of a few similar restaurants nearby. Invariably one check and we'd chop it up unless we were rouletting.

One exception: if we bring my kids to dinner with friends who are kidless, which we occasionally do, I wouldn't propose CCR and we'd chop the bill based on the number of heads, i.e. if there were four Treesongs and one other couple, we'd chop it 2/3, 1/3.

I'm genuinely surprised there is so much variance here.

I figured everyone went out to dinner with a group of friends/couples, got the bill, and everyone threw in cash until there was WAY too much, then you go back and forth trying to convince people to take money back. And occasionally, someone would put the whole thing on their card and take cash from the others, or if nobody had cash, just chop it up.

@howard
Odds you can hook me up with a zone based thermostat ?

Yeah this would be standard but the problem is people that get separate checks usual want to pay only exactly what they owe, and aren't great at calculating what they owe/don't leave a standard tip. So what ends up happening is you have a $100 bill and $108 in cash so you need like $10 more because somebody forgot to put in $3 for their soda or had a bill of $21 pretax and only gave $25, and then everyone is passing the bill around trying to add up what they owe and it becomes an annoying process. So for those people, separate checks makes sense because you avoid the awkward and silly bill passing and calculating over a few bucks.

I meant caters in terms of the whole (or majority) of the menu.

I just don't see how separate bills is this big equalizer in terms of financial status of friends. The main problems of different financial status still exist regardless of how the bill is being paid and there are better options then just making them be really cheap in what they order.

With very close friends it's probably 50/50. With my larger circle, we often have a large group of people that can be 8-12 people (late 30s to early 40s professionals). We always do separate checks and then I tip like 30-35% to make up for the hassle to the server.

I would say 95% of the time with groups we're doing separate checks. From the pole, it's obviously perfectly standard, so no big deal.

With my family, I pick up the entire check 99% of the time, but that's just because I'm the only one who's not poor.

Everyone gets their own check, the waiter has to print 4 checks, big ****ing deal.

Separate checks, depending on the group/meal. Sometimes just chop it evenly.
MA/NH, pubs/breweries/hibachis/sushi, etc. Mostly young professionals and blue collar workers.

Re: CCR - I used to do it quite often. Got stuck with the most pricey one to date LDO.

Think of all the trees.

I managed litigation for a Honeywell business group called Automation & Control Solutions, which of course included the division (Evironmental & Combustion Controls) that makes Honeywell thermostats. But I left Honeywell almost five years ago, and thus no longer have access to the company store.

Here’s the general rundown on how checks are handled when I go out:

1. Just the wife and me – Just one check (obv).

2. Out with one or two other couples – Someone will try to grab the check and just pay it. Others will object and end up all throwing a credit card in to be split evenly. If someone’s meal was way out of the range of the others or had unusually expensive drinks we’d adjust how much on each card – something like 60/40 or 40/30/30. Sometimes we will be asked when the waiter arrives if it should be on one check or more. If so we’ll tell them how to split. This happens anywhere from casual restaurants to higher end to fine dining.

3. More than three couples – I think we are always asked either when seated or when the waiter comes about payment. Doesn’t matter what type of restaurant.

4. Large group of family – I’ll always try to pick it up unless my sister (or other member of my generation) beats me to it. The “kids” are all professionals in their 30s so it’s not a matter of who can pay. When we get seated I usually find a way to let them know it’s one check. Any type of restaurant but usually not fine dining. If the little kids are involved it’s usually somewhere like Olive Garden.

Most of this is in Northern Virginia. With family expands to Minneapolis or Denver. One other couple could be anywhere. But I will say I haven’t eaten in NY or LA since I was young and poor. I have never done, nor been asked to participate, in CCR.

If I'm just meeting up with one friend we almost always just do one check and one of us pays for the whole thing. 3+ tends to be either separate checks, or one person puts it on their card and everyone else gives him cash.

early 30s, medium sized town on east coast, typically hang with young professionals around the same age

Always split the check and honestly thought thats what everyone did. Whether I'm out with buddies drinking or with another couple eating dinner at a nice restaraunt we always get the check split. Obviously if we invited friends out for a birthday or special occasion I'll pay the entire bill but other wise it's always split. Actually when I think about it, servers down here don't even ask. It's inderstood that each person wants their own bill.

Houston, TX
Mid 20's

As a former server - really not much difference in hassle between split checks and one check/multiple credit cards. I'm assuming a lot of times the one check is restaurant policy?

With that said, I'm always multiple checks.

Late 20s, boring old man, usually just do dinner with wife and other couples. Central Illinois. All types of restaurants (not **** else to do around here) so casual, chain (Olive Garden etc) nice local places $100+ for me and the wife.

I just have all my regular establishments send me a monthly invoice.

there are 2 kind of people who argue for "splitting everything equally"

those who grossly underestimate how hard they screw others and those having the need to show off their money and how little they care about it.

Alex,

I hang out with people in an incredibly wide socioeconomic range. When the group has people without much money, we usually go someplace more casual than a sit-down dinner place for the reasons jj mentions. Or if we go someplace nicer I'll always come up with a reason to treat people who have way less money. Seems terrible to go someplace where everyone is having fun with apps, steaks, and drinks while one person is forced to eat the happy hour special mini-burger and water.