"Splitting the check" means different things to different people. If you mean "divide the check 3 ways", that's one thing. If you mean "Place each item from my four people on one check, and the rest on another" then it creates problems for the restaurant. When you order food, the waiter creates a check that is sent to the kitchen, The kitchen sees that check as all one party. If the waiter submits four checks to the kitchen, four different groups of food will be prepared AND NOT NECESSARILY SEQUENTIALLY. Therefore, the different groups in the party may be eating at different times! Dividing the check after dinner is only easy if it's equally divided. Any other method is a Nightmare! Additionally, are you aware how many guests cannot calculate a gratuity in excess of 10%?

I'm with you on paying with a card and getting the cash from the other.

Usually, when we go out, it is three of us - hubby and me and my best friend & cooking buddy. He usually has cash so I take the cash, leave the tip from that, and kep the rest (it makes no difference whether we use my card or hubby's - I always get the cash).

If we go out with others we usually just split it down the middle if what everyone ordered was around the same- give or take a few. Now if there is a big difference between the cost of what has been ordered we will lean more to paying our share (we sually estimate high). As for the credit cards I guess it depends on the people we are with. Sometimes we use 2 cards or if they are cash people we usually put it on our card and take their cash.

I only split it evenly with close friends. Usually, we figure out who had what. I always have cash, so I can just give my share to my friend, who generally puts it on their card. As fewer people carry cash, I've found this necessary.

Rarely do I ask a server to split the check, generally only if I have to leave early or the meal is something I can expense (the city is very, very picky about itemized food receipts).

The economy hasn't affected how I do things at all. It might affect what I choose to order, though.

The practice of tendering more than one credit card to pay a given check is of fairly recent vintage. Carey's blog entry on the original topic post alluded to some of the reasons for this practice. People are more accustomed to paying for everything with plastic, and are less willing to venture out with large amounts of cash on their persons. Also, in olden times, it took a couple of minutes for a restaurant to call a credit card center and verbally read a credit card number to a live person at the other end in order to get an approval for the transaction. Thankfully, the approval process is a lot faster these days, what with magnetic swiping and always-on approval access.

Over the years, I've been more accustomed to the "pay for what you ordered" school of dividing the check.

I prefer to put the bill on my card and get cash from the others. (That way I get the frequent flier miles.) That doesn't work if my companions are likewise addicted to frequent flier miles, however.

But however it's done, I do think paying the establishment once and settling up between the customers is the considerate thing to do.

I normally pay for what I/wife ordered, but I always figure it out with a rough estimate. I would never be one of those people who break out a calculator.

My daughter used the give me cash I'll use my credit card when she was in college. The catch was the credit card bill came to me but she kept the cash. When dining out with friends we always settle up between ourselves. Sometimes it is cash other times it is you paid this time I'll pay next time. In the end it all works out.

Just a reminder in computing the total: Maryland's 6% sales tax has to be included in the total. Shortages in the pot are probably the result of not computing sales tax, just the tip.

RtSO -- in my experience, shortages in the pot aren't due to certain guests forgetting to include the sales tax. More commonly, certain members of the group are cheap tippers (and this is true even when the service has been exceptional).

From time to time, I've seen "restaurant tipping guides", printed on plastic cards like those used for wallet calendars, which show what a 15% and/or 20% tip would amount to on various check totals. It would be nice if somebody could print a similar card, including one or two choices of tip amount plus the 6% sales tax, to provide guidance to restaurant patrons, and not just the more math-challenged members of a given dining group. (Let's face it, it's tough to calculate a 21% or 26% add-on factor off the top of your head.)

I do not enjoy the "i'll take your cash and use my card move". As a person that usually pays cash when out with a group (specifically to facilitate an easy division of the check), I often find myself in the position of handing over a wad of cash to a person I may or may not know very well and trusting them to leave the tip that I would want them to leave. There have been instances where I have noticed the person has left a small tip, but pocketed the cash, which leaves me feeling like their jilted ATM...(and no - I do not usually dine with these people again...).

I have tried to come up with a polite way to inquire what kind of tip the other person leaves, but haven't really found one that would be tactful. In some cases, I casually remark, "oh, i threw in extra for the tip because I come here a lot and they take care of me", which may work to call the tip to their attention. I think the most ideal situation is when a restaurant adds a gratuity to the check, so then I know that our servers will be taken care of.

Hmpstd's suggestion is a good one. I have seen a few restaurant tabs that calculate the tip (usually about 15%, sometimes 18% or 20%, with a smaller or larger amount as well) at the bottom.

hmpstd--there is sales tax on food eaten in restaurants? News to me! (And to a lot of other people as well, I imagine ...)

Even when I split the check with people, I always leave my own tip. Groups usually don't tip right. Even if I pay with a credit card, I tip in cash (unless I'm expensing the meal, which doens't happen often).

I think I have been in every situation mentioned above. I usually get the short end of the stick b/c I am not a big drinker.

Once, when dining with 5 other people, I figured in my head that my portion was about $20. Someone suggested that we split the check evenly @ $60/person! This was one of the few times that I objected to the easiest solution.

I think that the restaurant industry needs to acknowledge this issue. As others have suggested, it is not always easy to tell someone that they are being cheap or have not calculated their portion correctly. You have a really great meal and a fun time only to cap it off by bickering (or feeling shorted) when the bill comes.

A few years ago, I ate at a Cracker Barrel with about 8 people I work with. Without even asking, our waitress offered to give each of us our own bill. If Cracker Barrell (of all places!) can do what is most accomodating to its patrons, why can't other restaurants follow? Restaurants are in the service industry and those people who wait on us are called servers.

For those in the restaurant industry, I am not suggesting that a servers should have to manage 20 different checks, but if the request is within reason...why not? Maybe the patron would be even more willing to bring larger parties there in the future.

Especially in today's economic climate...our restaurants are suffering.

Dahlink -- it may technically be called a "restaurant tax", or a "meal tax", or an "admissions and amusement tax", but, for all intents and purposes, it's the same as a sales tax.

I was told once that when you include the tip on a credit card payment, the server doesn't get the full amount you intended to tip. So I nearly always pay the bill with a credit card (again, frequent flier miles) but leave the tip in cash.

(I think that's the third or fourth time I've typed "flier" today, and now it doesn't look right. It probably should be "flyer." Where is John McIntire when we need him? Or is it John McIntyre?)

I think it all depends really. Though I think the best option that you let someone know at the start of the evening you'd like to split a check. Also I find that if you are the person who is using the credit card, you tend to get screwed by the people not factoring in tax'n'tip. I always come out having to fork over at least ten more because people are just not paying attention.

Also I really hate the split it all evenly, I find that only really works with something like crabs where you are all paying exactly the same amount barring one or two extra beers. However you do that at some place like Fogo de Chao, and someone gets royally taken.

Easy solution: multiple the sale tax by 4 and you have an 18% tip and have covered the sales tax. Before Maryland increased the tax from 5% to 6% it was even easier. Once you're at 18% you can round up for a higher tip or down to get back to about 15%. Even if you're splitting the total, start with 10% of your total and double it to get an approximation, without a calculator.

I recently had a houseguest (for 3 weeks!) who, at our first dinner out together with another person, split the bill to the penny and then declared she didn't believe in tipping. I was dumbfounded. The other guest and I added a generous tip so we'd be sure the server got the right amount.

Of course, this is also the person who whipped a toothbrush out in the middle of the restaurant and brushed her teeth at the table! Raised by wolves, I tell ya.

AMS- I agree my husband and I aren't big drinkers so when you go out with people who drinks we don't do the whole split the bill among us because we end up paying tons of extra money for their drinks.

If she has chateaubriand and I have
a cheeseburger, we're not splitting the check. On the other hand, if each spends about the same amount of money (say, within $5), we'll split the check. The other way to go is, I'll treat this time, you treat next time. Either way works with most of my friends.

I have also noticed that at Ruby Tuesday restaurants when the check is bought it is sorted by what each person ordered, so you can see what you had and pay and tip accordingly. This was always without asking.

A new, small Little Italy restaurant refused to split a check evenly to two credit cards. I didn't like that.

Why would a restaurant refuse to evenly split on 2 credit cards? It makes no sense to me.

Clearly anon.e.mouse's long-term house guest never waited tables, if she doesn't believe in tips. And that's probably a good thing! Brushing teeth at the table? Did she spit or swallow?

Bucky- When you leave a credit card tip for the server, they do receive the tip. However, they have to claim that amount when they cash out at the end of the night. It's been a long time- but I think that the server is only required to claim a certain percentage of their sales as their tips for the night- and it's usually much less than what they actually collect in tips. This affects their taxes and results in having what little pay they receive (it was $2.35 an hour when I was a server) being erased due to taxes withheld. Although ultimately it's not enough and a lot of servers end up owing thousands of dollars come tax time.

Anyways, if most of their customers for the night leave tips on credit cards, the server has to claim the full amount. So if they had made let's say $100 in tips all night and they were all in cash, they might only have to claim $75 in tips. But, if they received all $100 in tips on credit card slips, they have to claim all $100, and that results in paying more taxes.

Dahlink... She's a doctor. I am pretty sure she never waited tables. And she sort of "dry brushed" at the table, and must have swallowed. I can not tell you how mortified I was about the entire event.

Ms Susan PG, what you describe is the federal offense known as tax fraud. Servers are no different than any other person subject to taxes in this country. They are required to claim 100% of tips. IRS regulations, as I recall them, require the employer to 'credit' the employee a fixed percentage if the cash the employee reports to the employer is less than that percentage of business the employee generated that day. Since the employer already has the actual amount of tips on credit cards, that number is taken as correct and added to the cash tips reported or calculated.

Your suggestion is no different than if you decided to only report a percentage of your W-2 income, except you'd get caught quicker since IRS has a copy of your W-2. The rules were implemented just because after test audits and other studies, IRS found that restaurant employees had a very low compliance rate.

The $2.35 a server is paid is the minimum the employer has to pay to meet minimum wage requirements. Again from memory, this amount is allowed only if the employer believes/knows (don't remember the standard) the the balance of the minimum wages is being received to meet the minimum wage. In other words the employer may claim a credit against meeting minimum wage requirements for tips received by the employee, but must pay at least the $2.35 an hour.

A final thought: it was tax fraud and the IRS that brought down Al Copone.

I thought Syphilis is what brought down Al Capone.

Susan PG (BTW,did you used to be Susan WNAJ?) That was probably the reason. I also got the impression that the...fee or whatever they call it...the "vig"...that the credit card company charges would also be deducted from any credit card tip. Something like that.

Anyway, ever since, I've always tipped in cash. And RtSO is right...I'm sure that leads to tax fraud. Ummm...I wonder if it makes me a co-conspirator?

I want to be nice to servers, but I don't need a trip to the Big House.

Bucky, I am still here. We have two Susan's (at least) on this blog.
If I ever get a job I will not be Susan WNAJ anymore :-(

Susan WNAJ...damn...I had hoped it was one in the same and that the PG meant you had gotten a job.

Perservere.

So as both a server and a college student, I have experience both sides of the "splitting the check" business. II work at a restaurant/bar in Georgetown frequented by many students, and it is rare that there is only one form of payment at a table. Some people split evenly, some work out what they owe down to the cent. As a server, its not really that biig a deal to run many cards or even split checks by item- though it helps to have warning for that. Whats annoying about it is that people tend to forget how they split things, ie whether or not they included tips, so tips on split checks are generally much lower than if one person pays.

From the reverse perspective, as a poor college student, I often don't like splitting evenly- if I'm only orderiing soup so I can pay my rent, and others order steak and several pitchers of beer (which I'm too young to enjoy anyway), I'm not going to split evenly. Stiill if its not even, usually people dont put in enough. They forget tax or dont tip as much, so the outcome iis always short. As a server, I'm not going to let the tip be low so I generrally end up putting in more than my share to make sure the servers taken care of.

Not sure what the best solution is- whenever you split a meal its tough b/c people have diff tipping standards and some are always trying to just be cheap.

Re declariing tips: You have to declare 100% of tips and there is a record of credit card tips. However, you declare what you walk home with, so if you tip out bussers or runners, you may not end up with the full amount that the credit says you have (if you have little to no cash tips), and what you declare (not what the cc says) is what the government sees.

If splitting the check evenly is an arrangement that works for everyone in the party, that's fine.

But how anyone can think that it is cheap, rude, or classless to only pay for my portion of the meal instead of paying two or three times as much to cover other peoples alcohol tab is beyond me. If being responsible with my money causes people to see me that way, so be it. It seems to me that people who aren't willing to pay for everything they've ordered and put in their fair share of the tip are the ones being cheap, rude, and classless.

Emily...so cut to the chase for me. Would you rather get your tip in cash or on the card? Think this through carefully, because every server I encounter is going to be handled the way you tell me to.

(Not to put pressure on you or anything...)

RoCK, syphillis is what might have sent Al Capone to the next astral plane, but the feds sent him to the big house.

Getting back to the topic we started with (if only for a moment), I see a big difference in handing over my $12 or so for a shared lunch and having to come up with hundreds of dollars in cash that one couple might owe after a big night out with friends. That is where I really appreciate servers who will split the tab on two credit cards.

I'm going to go with cash- cc fees do get deducted from tips (though minimal) and getting cash tips make it easier to tip out at the end of hte night without getting change etc from the bar (it also means having more cash in hand when you need to make change for people)

And not that I ever do of course, but if you happen to have a server who wants to cut short what they declare (aka tax evasion), then cash tips help them there...

Wow, I had no idea I'd cause such a ruckus with the tip declaration, I was just trying to explain. I can see your point, I guess it is tax evasion, I just never really saw it that way because that's just what everyone did. It's been about ten years since I've waited tables.

Ms Susan PG the Sandbox is a full service blog (really, its the only blog you will ever need.) Make a statement and you are likely get grammatical, legal, tax, maybe medical, possibly relationship and taste advice without even asking or wanting to know. Why some of the comments will even be on point and extend the discussion. So, always bring your concerns to the Sandbox, the Only Blog You Will Ever Need.

the Sandbox, the Only Blog You Will Ever Need.

RtSO--truer words were never spoken (or typed, as the case may be ...)

My dearest Dahlink, since I move my lips as I type (well there are big words to type), either is actually true.

"the Sandbox, the Only Blog You Will Ever Need."

Really? Let's try that out: Recently single, somewhat commitment-phobic, bourbon drinking, suit wearing, piano and guitar playing, D@L addict girl seeks interesting boy who reads and likes Maker's Mark and Samos.

Okay Sandbox, know anyone??

Relationship advice? Okay Sandbox, help with this: DBF is vegetarian (except bacon, which he calls "seasoning). His dream place to go out is Sushi or Indian, both of which I hate. My dream place is BBQ or steak, which doesn't have anything for him. The result is that when we go out to eat together at some place that has food we both can eat, neither of us is fully satisfied because it's not a home run for either of us. The only time I am fully satisfied with a meal out is when I don't have to eat out with him, and vice versa. When he has a night off from me, he announces with passive-aggressive relish that he's going out for SUSHI. And I respond by being overly delighted to inform him that I will be having the most amazing bbq BRISKET ever. Are we doomed? Can we spend a lifetime together with neither of us being fully happy with the meals we have to eat out together?

Nancy said: Can we spend a lifetime together with neither of us being fully happy with the meals we have to eat out together?

I couldn't do it, but you might be stronger. :-)

Nancy: I don't know how you can assure this, but anyone who is a "vegetarian (except for bacon...)" is worth keeping around, if only for the comedy he provides.

Bourbon Girl: I've got the guy for you. Are you willing to compromise just a little? He's tone-deaf, illiterate and married, but he believes that Maker's Mark is proof that there is, indeed, a God.

Ms. Bourbon Girl: how's 2 out of 3 (single malt for me.) See, the Sandbox does do it all (not always well.) I'm sure other Sandboxers will provide much better options.

And whilst we're at it, how about some job leads for Ms. Susan WNAJ (which are not a radio station call letters.)

"The only blog you'll ever need". That is true- I don't think there's any other dining/restaurant blog that discusses tax evasion, the definition of "thug", Al Capone's demise, along with the merits of grilled cheese and Cincinatti Chili and cheese plates. I love it. Maybe that's why I'm so addicted.

Thanks Robert (the Single One) for the lightheartedness. I was afraid I'd be viewed as a tax frauderer (is that even a word) and not welcome. I promise I pay all my taxes, really I do.

Bourbon Girl - Your search for "love" on D@L might turn EL into a Yente. Oh, heck, I'm single, if you're interested. I play the piano (duh) - alright, I'm gay.

Susan WNAJ - How about you and I start a business together? I'm unemployed (full-time) as well. Hey, we can start a Matchmaking Blog!

Bourbon and Susan - let's talk; Sammy's, 5:30.

"The Only Blog You'll Ever Need"

I like that expression and have enjoyed the W I D E variety of topics that are explored, often miles from the original post.

Cheers!

Susan PG wrote: I was afraid I'd be viewed as a tax frauderer (is that even a word) and not welcome.

OK, everyone who has never cheated on their taxes, raise your hand.

Just as I thought...

And, by the way, Mr. McIntyre said yesterday, You and I can make up words. It’s easy. For example, you can attach the prefix anti- to just about any noun in English to create a word that will be immediately understood — even though it’s not in the dictionary. It will be a word.

The segue into the realm of the personals reminds me of one of my sister's worst blind dates ever. At first she was really impressed when this guy explained that he has changed his name to reflect his spiritual quest, and she thought, "Wow--that's deep!" Then he mentioned that he divorced his wife because she gained 10 pounds. Sorry-that's shallow! Waiter--check please!

Piano Rob - I missed another flash happy hour! How was it? I'm usually still working at 5.30. Did Susan WNAJ show up? And is that Sammy's Trattoria in Mt Vernon? How is that place? Do they have Maker's Mark?

And thanks for throwing the gay thing out there. I thought you were just being teased about the musicals. Two marrieds and a gay guy. So many tempting options!

If EL turns into a Yenta (what is that?) she will have a tough time of it.

This whole dating thing has me rolling on the floor...almost literally....keep up the good work guys.

Rob: I missed the post about Sammy's or I would have been there.
SORRY!!!!!

Susan WNAJ - we're there every Wednesday

PRob - who is "we"?