To think you don’t get out of paying the bill because you don’t drink?

If I was just drinking water or something I'd want to split. But for the small difference. I might have argued she had a set budget, but if she could afford pud...

This is the exact reason why I always ask for a separate bill when I go out with friends. Then I can either be as lavish or as stingy as I want, knowing that I’m only paying for myself anyway.

You should have taken off all the drinks, she pays for the cokes, the rest pay for the alcohol. No big deal.

It’s simple really. You should’ve added up your drinks and split between the drinkers, then added up her cokes and told her she needed to pay for her non alcoholic drinks.. I wouldn’t have added the cokes to the bill that was split….
f splitting the bill I believe drinks shouldn’t be added to the tab .. she should’ve ordered and paid for her own drinks separately!
if she comes again simply say at the start that everyone is to pay for their own drinks to avoid people paying for cokes they didn’t have!

pisses me off when I'm out for dinner (I don't drink) and fiends have couple of glasses of wine - and then split the bill equally. However, friendship is more important to me then saving couple of quid.

No OP, YNBU. You've all paid towards her coke bill and she knows it

I have a group of friends that have always split our bills when we go out for dinner. One friend, let’s call her Alison was a very big drinker, ordered multiple bottles of wine, always had a cocktail and a floater coffee to finish-we always split the bill evenly (even though often someone wasn’t drinking for one reason or another), no one made any comment about it, just a happy, friendly thing to do.
Alison has recently given up all alcohol following an illness (not alcohol related). She has been extremely evangelical about this and tells everyone constantly how bad alcohol is (which I don’t doubt) this has been a bit annoying as there’s always now a big fuss if the bar/restaurant doesn’t have alcohol free wine.
Anyway, we all recently went for dinner and Alison had several alcohol free beers and an alcohol free cocktail. She also had extra sides. When the bill arrived Alison insisted that as she hadn’t had any alcohol the bill should be split by what each person had eaten/drunk.
Her bill was considerably higher than everyone else’s (mostly because she had more items). The look on her face was a picture!

If someone is being invited then that's by the host and the host is paying. Problem solved then.

Meeting up with people for a meal where everyone pays for themselves requires no invitation because it isn't one.

Why are you taking this so personally that you need to be rude and make unfounded assumptions about somebody you don't know?

The service is generally not excellent. It's often mediocre. I'm not tipping that, it's already been paid for.

I don't mind other people doing something else or having a difference of opinion. I do mind the banal insults over what is a gratuity that many other workers on NMW don't get.

It's up to restaurateurs to charge what is needed for the service they want to provide and to recruit staff on a wage that they will accept to do the work. My contribution to that is my custom, being an easy customer (which I am) and paying the bill in full. Anything else I choose to give is at my discretion.

I've read many threads here on this with daft reasoning like "staff deserve tips to put up with dreadful customers. No, they don't. Staff deserve decent managers who will kick out the dreadful customers and not allow their staff to be exposed to them. That is their job, not mine. How much of a tip would actually make it ok for staff to be abused then, using that lack of logic? Ridiculous.

I don't go to places where there are 'dreadful' customers because it would be unpleasant and my time/money is finite. If that contributes to the place shutting down then good riddance to it. Good staff will always find work.

They put Doric columns on one side of the can, and Corinthian on the other.

That's impressive. Managing to shoehorn in a reference to calories on a thread that (a) has nothing to do with calories, and (b) where nobody asked.

I think the error arose because they didn't notice what a massive amount she'd spent, so she's ended up being subbed by £7.50. If they'd done a simple split (which, in any case, they were quite happy not to do) the drinkers would have been subbed by about 50p.

Everyone should just have paid for themselves. But I still don't see how OP is unreasonable, exactly. Other than by writing an ambiguous AIBU?

This! ⬆️ Unless I'm misunderstanding, you would have been happy for her to pay part of the alcohol the rest of you had but you're not happy about paying for part of her non alcoholic drinks?
All seems a bit petty. Just pay for what you each had? 🤷‍♀️

And that's the fault of the person who did the calculating and not the person who asked for the alcohol to be removed. You're saying people are not comprehending, they're comprehending fine. The group messed up the calculating, she didn't ask them to pay for it, they failed to take it off. So that's their fault.

I bet you don't get invited a second time!

You've just answered your own question.

You tip when service has been really excellent.

That's the point.

The incentive for restaurant staff to provide really excellent service is tipping.

What? 😵‍💫

We used to go out with family to gatherings to a pub that did BOGOF. Every time the bill was split we’d pay £43 to the pot, this didn’t include drinks. When I actually added this up we were paying £20 over what our meals would have actually cost so it turned out the birthday person who didn’t pay for their meal was being treated by us. The next time we went to prove the point, we paid separately, no skin off anyone’s nose. We’re still there but only paying ours.

YANBU. I would of asked for her to pay for what she ordered then split with the rest.

Hi just to inform you as someone who is a hospitality boss:
No we cannot supplement wages with tips, the wages we pay are as per legal requirement, is living wage, plus we pay NI contributions etc. My last place we actually paid over minimum wage.
Staff also pay taxes etc so a tip can be great and it also motivates to keep up the good work.

As for @ThatHardyWaspAgain Classical coke? I've never heard it called that before. Coke is usually, for a pint between £3 and £4. Alcoholic drinks are well over that, I don't have any in my pub the same or less of a price than a pint of coke.

Ages ago the OP pointed out the lack of reading comprehension on part of many of the responders. You and the person you quote are also both guilty of this. "She has paid her share of food, plus her drinks" - no, the entire point of the original post is that the cola drinker had the alcohol removed, but the cola left on. So the three alcohol drinkers contributed to her cola (which cost almost as much as the alcohol) whilst she didn't contribute to the alcohol. Not sure why this is quite so difficult to comprehend, but there you go. Wouldn't have picked you up on this were it not for you chucking unwarranted insults around. Bit "petty" of me, I know. Still, amusing thread!

Absolutely. In many places alcohol still costs significantly more. Also, some people may have religious reasons for not wanting to pay for alcohol. OP is being petty.

I’m not sure why, in response to her request not to pay for alcohol, you didn’t just ask to take her food and drinks off the bill and she paid for them separately. The rest of you then spilt the remaining bill (food and alcohol) between you.

It was a reasonable request not to pay for alcohol (this can be for various reasons not necessarily only financial), but IMO the bill was then mismanaged by the group, leading to the rest of you paying more.

The desserts are neither here nor there, she could have sat and eaten her dessert or chosen not to have one.

Part of the irritation comes from going along with suggestions you weren’t comfortable with or didn’t think through at the time and she isn’t at fault for that.

🤣🤣🤣 possibly.

I just find it silly that 1 person says they won't pay for alcohol, because they only had coke, and no one had the sense to either split by what each person had or the sense to just get her to pay for her own and the other 3 split theirs between them. And then the OP asks if they're being unreasonable for being upset at their own foolishness. It doesn't sound like the person asking not to pay for alcohol had anything to do with the calculating.

Classical colas has made me laugh!

If anyone's interested, coke rebranded to "new coke" due to repeatedly losing to Pepsi in blind taste tests. People were so outraged that they would change the recipe from the coke that they new. So they changed the recipe back and rebranded to coke classic. It was and never has been classical cola 😂