Comment by Animats

Right. Many restaurants won't do a split check beyond 3 or 5 people.

This place in Dubai doesn't sound that bad. It can get much worse. Two of us went to a restaurant in Cupertino, near Apple HQ, where the table had a QR code. But it didn't just bring up the menu in a browser. It wanted the customer to install their app. Then the customer could order through the app. That's going too far.

The restaurant was mostly cooking for pickup and delivery. Delivery people were going in and out constantly, but few people were eating on site. So on-site eating was made a special case of remote ordering, with a really short delivery trip.

Never went back there. The food was mediocre.

All this apparently works better in China, where WeChat took over and standardized customer interaction and payment. Of course, the Third Department knows where you ate dinner, and with whom.