Family dinner - please help!

[Starlight1979]

I come from a very large family who all get together at least once a year in an area central to where everyone lives. In total there are probably 30-40 of us but can be more / less depending on if everyone can make it / whether people bring OH, kids etc.

Anyway, we have a catch up planned for a weekend August which will include a meal at a restaurant on the Saturday evening (mid range - gastro pub type place). There will be (at last count) 32 of us. There are all age ranges from 80 to 8 months.

The problem (and where I need MN help!) is that every single time we eat out, there is ALWAYS an issue when it comes to paying the bill.

Previously we have:

1. Sat and gone through every single meal / drink and try to calculate it all individually and then paid separately - Mortifying and takes an eternity. Embarrassing for all concerned.

2. Try to split it per couple / family - Won't work any longer as there are now more singles and also the kids who used to eat for free / cheap are now teenagers who probably eat more than the adults! Also a pain when some people drink and others don't.

3. One person / couple pay the bill and then everyone transfers their portion to them after the event - DP did suggest we do this but we're not exactly rolling in it at the moment and the thought of forking out £1,000 - £1,500 indefinitely just scares me a bit. Don't get me wrong I trust my family to pay it back but some of them will take weeks and it's awkward having to chase people up!

Can anyone give any other ideas as to how we could work this???

Thanking you in advance 🙏

We just go up to the bar, and pay for what we had, then next family do the same and then just from there

We had this on holidays recently and they just gave each family group a number : family 1, family 2, family 3 etc. everyone just ordered on their own tab

What about ringing them up and asking if they could offer a fixed price menu with some choices for each course? You could specify entree and main course for a fixed price then people could pay separately for pudding, coffee and drinks.

Or a menu circulated beforehand, people make their choices and pay someone beforehand as well, with a 10% added as tip etc.

I’d have thought the restaurant would be onboard with this as it would make their catering that night so much simpler and easier also for your family - no faffing while people choose - you can all meet for an aperitif then sit down and be served quite smoothly.

As you might imagine I too have organised large family meals! Although there’s never an issue about paying- we all usually compete to be the person to pay the bill - but I cannot bear the dragging about choosing and swapping and last minute changes! I like to eat!!

Set up tabs for family groups. Ask for different table numbers. We have this issue for family meals much smaller. Gets really annoying so that’s how we do it now.

You could speak to venue first and see if they could do an order sheet for each family/group paying together to write down their order (with name on it) . Then give these to the staff to ring in on separate bills then any drinks after this order and pay themselves at the bar.

I own a restaurant. When we have a large group we almost always ask if they want one bill or split bills. We have a system of split bill numbers. Each single/ couple/ family get a ticket with a table number on. They are told to order all food and drinks on said bill number. And then we tell the kitchen they are all together for service.
So many people have wowed at our system. We also ask large parties to preorder so the kitchen can prep their starters ready for their arrival. If they preorder I assign their number to their name on the preorder as I take their order for first drinks.

We do this and had the same issues. We call the venue and ask for tabs per family and when ordering food/drinks they put it on the relevant tab. Works a treat.

@LilEllie I sold my restaurant about a year and half ago to retire, but we had a similar system. Order taken at table,server asks, would you like one bill or seperate bills? a guest would say, those three are on my bill, and so forth down the large table. Server would draw lines between each family unit. Then say it was table number 10 with 6 different bills needed. First , on the POS system, they opened table ten and put as how many guests 6 (more guests but that is how many bills they wanted). would ring in first order then hit next guest ring in their order and just keep doing it until all the orders were in, then hit send all. It went to kitchen as one large chit but divided by guest groups. so easy. Then even if they ordered more drinks it was just added to the guests bill. When they were done it was a simple as opening the table and printing hit all for the bills and they just came out of the printer one after another. No fussing about.

also on our system.. say 3 couples ordered 2 bottles of wine between them. You just added it to one of them, then put in split item, and split it over the three of them. Same if a table ordered sharing appetizers , you could split them between all bills. So much easier when I started in restaurants and we had paper chits, filled out by hand for the kitchen to try to read, and calculators and a manual cash register lol.

Makes life so easy from the start right?! For servers and the customer!

I usually happy to split equally however if I’m out with a large group and everyone pays for what they have I’d suggest. Each group/couple pay for and order their own drinks as they go, all food put on a tab and at the end but before anyone leaves each couple/group go up and pay for what they have ordered. Just check it’s all been paid before anyone leaves or mentally take note of what people have ordered. This has worked very well when out in big groups

Again, me chiming in. The sheer number of times (before we perfected the split billl system) that someone would pretend they didn’t know how many wines they’d had or whatever, leaving someone to have to pay more.
Personally we did a split the bill with friends and after paying what we had plus tip ended up having to put 40 quid in just to cover the total.
Defo ask if the venue will do that for you!

Separate bills for food and buy drinks at the bar.

When I've done this I've had people choose from the menu beforehand, I've then pre-ordered the food and everyone sends me the money ahead of time plus a little bit extra for a tip. Then I pay the bill and everyone deals with their own drinks.

Even simpler where I am (elsewhere in Europe). No need for the till - the waiter will come up, do a little procession around the table and everybody will just tell them which dishes they had and pay individually.

We eat out in big groups with my walking group and they just charge us for what we had, you can ask to pay separately, you’ll still need to know the amount to pay of course

Drinks get paid for at the bar, someone from every family goes and pays. Everyone puts a small tip in

If it’s for that many people and you give them decent notice they would likely do a set menu for you. I’ve worked in place that’s have sone it. Good luck and enjoy x

Ask them to do a set menu for you and order off that so everyone pays the same. Then order all the drinks at the bar.

When we're in a big group with family (all the kids are adults now too) we just split the bill like so - so 16 people - divide bill by 16 and we pay 4 parts, another pays 5, another 3 and the other 4 again - it works out not exact but pretty fair. I am the same cannot bear the faffing but always used to pay and get everyone to pay me back but inevitably ended up chasing

Easy, just let the waitress/waiter know you want seperate orders/bills/tabs for each family. Get her to write your initials/first name on the top of the order so when you go to pay, they can run up each bill.

We are the same and the waiting staff just do a family order, then flip onto the next sheet of paper on their notepad and do the next family etc.

If you are pre-ordering, can't everyone come knowing how much their pre-ordered starters and mains cost. Then you just tot up the drinks at the end?