Are they being CF or are we?

[being40]

Okay last weekend we went to see SIL her DH and their three children. Two hour drive to their pub.
They have had the pub 18 months. As background SIL's DH's mum told me in an aside she felt I'd was a total vanity project. Said she was annoyed her son and DIL had spent £10k on the tenancy at a time when they had young children because her parents had a pub and she hated it.
So the other weekend DH and I along with our young DH went to see them at their pub. They are - as SIL's MIL predicted - giving up the pub.
My DH is very generous - and we had a meal at their pub and he offered to pay. So we did £100 - our half of the meal.
They never come to ours by the way - citing work and their age of their DH.
Now am IBU by expecting at least some of the meal on the house - the kid's pizzas or something.
My parents had a restaurant and never expected close family to pay. If they insisted my father would charge a minimum amount.
My mum thinks what happened was outrageous especially as we keep inviting them to ours...
My dish was a sludgy vegan burger although the chips were okay. I would have complained if it had not been their pub.

Sorry I think the CF is you.

They are running a business that is not doing well and they stand to lose 10k as a result.

It is CF like this that cause a lot of self employed people to go bust...

I agree with others it isn't an issue to be worked up about. Your husband offered to pay. I daresay brother and sister in law are not in the best place financially but you don't know what they'd have done had your husband not offered any payment - they might have sucked it up.

Don't let this one incident spoil the relationship.

Mother in law shouldn't have confided her feelings about their pub venture to you, it hardly helped.

All over now, op.

There's a saying...

"Friends and family will ask for a discount/freebie. True friends and close family will pay the full price"

Oh yes. That famous saying. I think I heard it on catchphrase the other day.

Really OP £200 for the full cost of a pub meal!!! Of course you should pay your half. They have to pay the staff who cooked it. £100 is a large bill to write off.

I run my own business and friends and family pay 100%. They want to see me do well and relying on handouts isn’t the way to thrive

Surely nobody is a CF, if they're giving up a business it's obviously not doing well and they surely stand to lose money. Not noce that people are slating their failure behind their backs and calling their life choices vanity projects .

Your mum needs more to do if she thinks the whole thing is 'outrageous', what a load of stirring nonsense that should be ignored. Not everything is a personal slight.

Don't expect a free meal anywhere, don't give to receive, don't talk people down behind their backs, be as kind as you can to your family, move on.

I totally agree with the majority.

You eat in a family member’s home - you wouldn’t expect to pay (unless you’re asked to bring something). You eat in a family member’s pub or restaurant - you expect to pay the same as any customer.

DH may well be a generous man. But offering to pay for a meal his family ate in a restaurant is most definitely not an example of that. It’s what is expected as basic, not some virtuous gesture.

Shame he didn’t ask for the bill...

I reckon it would have had their food, our food and a ‘discounted’ overnight rate to cover breakfast too...

If one always pays the full price and there are no alternatives it does make visiting that family expensive. Should one pay for every cup of tea and glass of wine? Visiting relatives shouldn't have to be so expensive.

I’d expect to pay at the pub, but they could have given you a free bottle of wine, ‘ on the house’.