Logo
PLACE YOUR AD HERE Contact us to discuss options and pricing
September 8, 2023

Talk about splitting the bill ahead of time

Lamar Moodyby
Photo by Alexia Frederickson

When I was a waiter, one small thing that made my job so much easier was when a group of people decided to split the bill before ordering or when the group already organized who would pay for each item. 

There are some things in this world that I feel just need to be done automatically, especially out of courtesy to the people who are serving you. Organizing the bill payment should be  simple amongst a group of friends or family, I should have nothing to do with it. 

Restaurant servers get  angry and annoyed when a group of people dine in and at the end of their meal, the bill payment isn't carefully discussed within the group. So now the group is trying to organize what they each had specifically on the bill. This situation can take forever and even get hectic causing the customers to argue. 

I was a restaurant server/busser for two years in Santa Monica, Calif., at a small restaurant named Cafe Crepe. Splitting the bill became an annoyance because the group would always argue or disagree on how to split it. 

I distinctly remember a group of eight people coming into the restaurant and eating, when the bill came out to $325, pandemonium ensued. The group of eight were now frantically discussing who had the steak and wine, who had the $18 salad and what price each person felt entitled to pay.  

Splitting or making eight different payments for one table is the most annoying thing ever. In my opinion the group of eight should just have one or maybe two people pay for everything. The other six people should just use mobile payment services such as Zelle, Cash App and Venmo to reimburse the  two who paid the original bill. Or even the Cash App, Venmo, or Zelle can be done at the very beginning before ordering. 

Establishing what everyone will order and how the bill will be split is so convenient not only for the server but for the people eating. 

Within a group of friends, people have different budgets and cravings. One friend may be craving a $50 T-bone steak and the other friend may just be craving a small $12 chicken caesar salad. In this scenario, I dont think it's right to split the bill in half knowing that the $50 steak is way more expensive. 

Sometimes people make things more complicated than they need to be, while other people simply just lack common sense. If you're going out to eat with a group of friends, the bill splitting situation should be briefly discussed and situated before anyone gets to start ordering their food. 

When I used to be a waiter, I always found it hilarious when the bill came and everyone would freeze and look at each other as if they didn’t know how the bill was going to be paid. 

It's simple people. Establish and discuss bill payment/splitting before you and a group of friends go out and eat together.