Except that the expensive meals are the outliers in the places I'm referring to. Most meals at a generic American diner type place will be in the $8-$15 price range and then there will be a few that are $20 or more. Should people who can afford and want those never order them to avoid screwing everyone else over?

And what about people who can't even afford $8 or can only barely afford $8 and can't really afford $12-$15? The only way your idea works is if you only go to McDonalds, you get a detailed breakdown of everyone's income and what they can afford and make sure others aren't spending more than that or if everyone you have a rather homogenous group. None of these seem especially appealing to me.

In the real world, what happens is people don't take any of this into acvoung and make a group decision on where to eat. Then each person has to make their personal decision on whether they're going with the group or not, and that decision is heavily influenced by whether that person can afford the place. When a person knows that they will only have to pay for exactly what they order and nothing more, it's a lot easier to decide to come. If they have the option of choosing to order something cheaper, it's easier for them to come.

The fact of the matter is that one check serves no real good purpose while separate checks makes things a lot more comfortable and convenient for people who are tighter on money and might go along with the group even though they can't afford it. Separate checks is far superior unless the entire group doesn't care about money.

I've been on the entire scale on this, from balling it up to wanting to hang with my friends and being unable to afford even a $1 order of hash browns. Separate checks is just way better.

What in the world are you talking about? That's nothing like what I described. I'm talking about places like Fridays or Ruby Tuesdays.

Can't remember the last time I had the impression the table cheque was something to be divided at the end -- I'm sure the norm here is for the waiter to punch everything in by seat. As the system default is separate cheques it's about how/whether you want any of the cheques combined and they produce whatever arrangement you want.

No real rule for it except the observation that is normally combined along the delineations of intimacy. Lately most meals with friends are around the kitchen island, though.

When I was younger—and poorer—we would just split the check semi-evenly and throw in some cash.

When I'm out with friends that don't make as much money I'll pick up the tab. I remember from my early days when older, better off people would do the same for me, i.e. work related outings with senior staff, out with friend's family and their father pays, etc. — and it was always a relief. So now I try to do the same.

As others have mentioned, in Toronto separate checks are completely standard for non-fine dining, at least for parties up to about 6, and have been ever since POS terminals got updated to make this easy. Before that, it was kinda douchey to ask for separate checks, and was often met with a "we don't do that" or "if you wanted separate checks you needed to ask when you ordered."

For larger parties, one check is most common, as no server wants to deal with 12 different payments for one table. Last largish birthday dinner I was at (25-30 people), people came and left at different times, ordered food whenever they felt like it, some people stuck around for drinks afterwards, etc. It was all on one tab, and everyone paid for themselves at the bar whenever they left. Bartender would ask what you had, touch the screen a couple of times, and give you your total. Seems like a lot of potential for some people forgetting everything they ordered and not all the items on the tab getting paid for.

1 bill. Everyone pays their share in cash. Sometimes someone uses a credit card and the others just pay him/her in cash with bills ranging from $20 to a few hundred.

I hang out with folks from 25-60 years-old crowd in Singapore and I've never seen separate cheques in my life.

Alex,

What I wrote also applies at places like that. I just agree with jj that it's more sensitive to those people to pick situations where that won't be an issue. That often involves going to places where it's totally normal for some of the group not to eat and that doesn't make them stick out.

or those who dont like to sit around nitting about something insignificant.

Particularly eating with friends, sometimes you come out short sometimes you come out ahead but over a long time frame who cares. Similar concept to buying rounds of drinks or whatever - somebody might buy a round of some slightly cheaper beer - not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

and if one person has a pattern of always being a cheap c*nt, that is a pretty good way to stop getting invited out.

Back when I was poor and friends invited me to go somewhere, I wouldn't go unless I knew for sure that I could basically cough up whatever would be slightly above average. I can't expect friends to always cater to whatever I'm able to afford so that means I may not always be able to go with them if I couldn't afford it unless someone took care of it for me (or at least guaranteed it in case I'd come up short).

Can't recall getting separate checks in a situation that didn't involve business travel.

I know it's very minor, but asking for separate checks seems like an imposition on the server.

It's amazing how many people are so incredibly conservative that they have some weird principal of never using separate checks even though separate checks is objectively the far superior solution in pretty much every single way. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the anti-separate checks people are mainly old people who probably also refuse to get a Facebook account or a smartphone. Either that or young people who care deeply about everybody around them seeing that they have enough money to not care about how much they pay for their meal.

I can only say that the lack of empathy you and JJ show is somewhat startling.

If it were me, I'd be far more concerned with the fact that I was hungry and around people who were eating than whether I stand out, and if this were the option presented to me, I certainly wouldn't go, which is exactly what most people would do. I'd much rather split checks and allow people the option of coming if they want than create a situation where they are totally excluded.

i agree there are a lot of olds who grew up with eating out before pos systems could easily deal with the novel concept of a person paying for what they ordered

except thats not true at all
thats the view/rationalisation of the underpayer/overeater.

particularly eating with friends several times you should notice how one guy likes to have pasta and a beer while the other prefers steak and the last one likes appetizer, fishplates and wine and an espresso afterwards.

of course there is variance involved, but the ranges stay about the same for each person.
Ive seen on numerous occasions where the highest tab was more than 8x times of the lowest one.

and btw all of these things have nothing to do with "being on a budget", some people just prefer a 4$ beer over a 50$ wine, same with the food.

It's really not

I'm old. No facebook. Yes smartphone. I'm poor and people know it.

america the land where you are forced to give a ridic % of tip to the waiter even if the service is utter ****e but god forbid you lose out on $1 when splitting a bill with friends

It's just part of their job. No different than asking for a refills or pointing out that it looks like you got onions on your burger even though you said no onions and are allergic.

Very rarely the case - isn't it other countries where servers are paid a higher wage and the "tip" is reflected in the higher prices?

It's not like they're writing the checks by hand.

My group is 20s, some students and professionals. We have brunch in a different place every Sunday. Always split checks. I've suggested credit card roulette but too many people are busto or nits.

We usually get several appetizers and have the server split them equally.

Young professionals/party type crowd in Milwaukee area. We will ask for a split bill before hand and roulette a decent amount

Edit: what's more convenient for the server; asking for split checks right away or one check and we split it up by writing on the back of the check

dk: has nothing to do with that. Separate checks has always been an option, it just stops being a normal thing to be done in a lot of places once people have jobs.

Alex: exactly the opposite. Going to a sit-down dinner place with someone who is going to sweat the cost so much their only option is the lowest price thing is the dick move imo. In groups like that, pick a bar or something where people can come early or late and eat whatever they want from nothing to a big meal. And then it's also very easy for people with more means to buy some extra rounds for those people. I've always had a lot of student/non-profit friends with no money and professional friends with tons, and the people with less money always prefer options like that for get-togethers.

So true.

dkgo going off itt!