Comment by PufPufPuf

1 day ago

Europe. You just walk to the register and point out the items you want to pay for. I've never seen a place where paying for a group of 6 separately would be a problem, it's the default and expected.

Europe is a continent. In all the countries I've been to in Europe, the service was indistinguishable from that in the US, where the bill is brought to the table and paid there. Can you be more specific as to what country's restaurants do people normally walk up to a register after eating?

  • This has happened to me twice in Norway and once in Germany, but only with large groups of people, so it's never 'normally'. If you're a smaller group or alone, the waiter will either remember who had what (or have kept track in their POS system?), or outright ask who will pay for what, since there are so few items to pay for that that's pretty manageable.

    The more common way to settle this in my experience, if you're in a larger group, is to announce your intention to split the bill before ordering, and then the waiter can go through what groups or individuals will pay and can track them accordingly.

    • Yeah, this is the same in the US. If you tell them ahead of time, there's no issue in splitting the bill. I was doing that 20 years ago when I was a waiter at both higher-end and mid-range restaurants.