Is There Such A Thing As Splitting The Bill At A Restaurant Too Many Ways?
After a long week, there's nothing quite like eating at a restaurant. If you feel this way too, you're not alone. QSR Magazine reports that roughly 163 million Americans spend money on dining out at least once a week, and nearly half of those surveyed said it was an "essential part of their lifestyle." Whether it's somewhere you already love or you're trying something new, we can agree it's nice to let someone else take the reins for the night.
After all, deciding what's on the menu for dinner every single day can get tiresome and even boring, especially if you constantly have the same meals in your rotation. Who wants spaghetti or meatloaf all the time, when you can nosh on an upscale burger created by Gordon Ramsay or perfectly seasoned braised pork tacos from a high-end eatery like The American Sector in New Orleans?
However, going out for food can become a bit trickier when you're dining with a group of colleagues or friends. There's the inevitable awkwardness at the end of the meal when the check comes, and everyone is scrambling to figure out whether and how to split the bill evenly. But is there a limit to how many times you should divide it? Apparently, yes.
Splitting your check more than four ways becomes problematic
While in other countries, it's common to bring the card machine to the table to pay for your dinner, in the U.S., it can get a bit more challenging when the bill comes. Ultimately, you're free to do whatever you want, but it becomes considerably burdensome for your server when you ask to split the check more than four ways. Varah LK Kappatos, who has worked in various positions at Philadelphia restaurants from waiter to manager, told Food & Wine that splitting your check this many ways can lead to mistakes.
"If you want to split a bill two ways, evenly, that is not a big deal at all," she explained. "Don't split a bill more than four ways. It is cumbersome and mistakes are more likely to be made by both sides when they need to handle that many credit cards, payments, etc."
The Takeout agrees, and says servers are slammed, and this accounting work not only makes things difficult for them, but that you will likely wait longer to get your bill. The outlet advises that to simplify things, have two people from the group split the bill 50/50 and have everyone else use Zelle, Venmo, or Cash App to reimburse those that paid for the meal. If you don't have these apps, cash works just as well.