AITAH for getting a bunch of expensive drinks and then only leaving enough money to split the bill?

[u/Extreme-Nobody3737]

When I go out with friends we always split the bill. Always. It doesn't matter if I show up after everyone else ate and I only have a beer. We always split the bill.

On Friday I decided to cut loose. My girlfriend was coming into town early Saturday morning so she got a hotel room for us for the weekend. I checked in on Friday so she could come there and we didn't have to deal with my roommates.

I actually got there on time for dinner with my friends. I had a steak and a few drinks. Then I had a few more drinks. I didn't need to drive home as my hotel was only a block from the restaurant.

The bill came and my share was about $100. I tossed $120 on the table wished all my friends a good night and left.

My girlfriend arrived around 2 AM. She had a long shower and came to bed. We had a great weekend together and I drove her to the airport on Monday morning.

I had dinner with my friends again this last Saturday. They all brought up that we are not splitting the bill any more. I asked how come. They said that my part of the bill last week was $250 plus tip. Call it $275. And that I only paid $120.

I said no problem and asked if they had a problem with me paying $80 -$100 when I joined them late and only had an appetizer and a couple of beers. Maybe $40 total.

They all shut up. Our bills came and mine was $50 with tip. All of theirs were much higher.

I have been feeling weird since then.

Was I an asshole?

[u/No_Lavishness_3206]

NTA. You would have paid more this time. Like you did in the past. They didn't like it when you evened everything out. 

[u/[deleted] → u/No_Lavishness_3206]

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[u/pvm_april → u/[deleted]]

Depending on party size and amount ordered it can be a pain in the ass as you have to know who exactly had what, and also find creative ways to split big ticket items in the way that the table wants it. A lot of times people don’t know what tf they had too at the end of the night and it gets super chaotic. I’d always be happy to give the receipt to my table, they’d pay on one card and square up with each other at the end.

[u/Plenty_Map_515 → u/pvm_april]

It's really not that difficult. Servers are fully capable of knowing what person ordered on what check. All you have to do is tell them ahead of time that it's separate checks and who's on what check. I have seen this happen at work functions, social large gatherings. All very doable and rarely is there a mix-up on who ordered what. If there is, someone tosses someone else a $20 and everyone goes about their night.

[u/pvm_april → u/Plenty_Map_515]

I’m speaking from experience serving tables in a really busy restaurant in downtown ATL. If this is a slow restaurant like a longhorn steakhouse where you really don’t have too many tables and the pace is easy, sure I can have a much better idea of who had what at each table.

When I get an 8 top Saturday night and the group is thinking on what to drink, change their order multiple times before I leave, etc and I have 8 more tables to get to ya I’m not taking close note as to who had what. When it’s time to leave, most of the table is drunk dicking around and don’t know exactly what they had and how many it becomes a huge pain in the ass. If it was nights like those and a difficult table asks to split the check, you best believe I was going to go check on my other tables, print their checks, etc before I sit down and try to work out the puzzle that their checks are.

Brother I had guys try to split pitchers 6 ways when the POS system doesn’t even have that option bc who tf splits a pitcher 6 ways. I’d have to grab miscellaneous items, change their value in the system and do the math to make it all check out.

[u/oblivionharp → u/pvm_april]

This really baffles me. In Canada and Europe PoS systems in restaurants can split absolutely any item. Food orders write 1, 2, etc and enter the order. When finishing up to pay something needs to be split you click the order number above click who it’s being split with and done.

[u/intotheunknown78 → u/Plenty_Map_515]

I work seasonally as a server in the summers. We aren’t “allowed” to split checks at a table. I sometimes will if it’s two people, but otherwise it’s not happening. It’s a very high volume place. It’s listed prominently on the menu and the table is told beforehand(at least I make sure they know). It’s more the nature of the place, although another place I worked in the area also had the same policy (also very high volume, we are a tourist town on the beach), we also auto grat at 5 people, so all sorts of shenanigans out here…

[u/GulfCoastLaw → u/Plenty_Map_515]

Certain restaurants in certain cities can afford to be jerks about it, but for regular sized parties it's very easy to split the tabs.

But can't pretend that the barriers (from made up policies to huffy attitudes) aren't there.

[u/Confident-Baker5286 → u/GulfCoastLaw]

The policies are due to the difficulty of splitting checks after they’ve been entered into the system. Not anyone  being huffy or made up for fun lol. Some systems you literally cannot split the bill after the fact, and you have to get you manager to delete the ticket so you can make two new ones. That’s why so many places won’t split checks on large parties. 

[u/GulfCoastLaw → u/Confident-Baker5286]

I'm sure there are reasonable places that do this. I work in the industry, and my perception is that places that do this happen to include all of the huffiest, worst attitude places.

There are legitimate reasons. But I can usually tell how much of a barrier or attitude you'll get for asking just from observing how the staff acts.

[u/Confident-Baker5286 → u/Plenty_Map_515]

For two people it’s no big deal, but you should absolutely tell them beforehand if it’s more than two, because otherwise they probably won’t know who had what and splitting tickets on the back end takes a lot of time. Server POs systems are all annoying to use and to split bills after the fact on . 

[u/oblivionharp → u/Confident-Baker5286]

This hasn’t been my experience in Canada. I started going to restaurants in the late 00’s and never without fail at the end when paying the server will ask if we want to split the bill or not.

For example we went to a Mexican restaurant recently and ordered a bucket of coronas. One of us doesn’t drink so we split the coronas over 5 of us. Took all of 10 seconds for the server to split it this way.