What you should be prepared for when you are invited to a restaurant in Canada. Why Canadian women can pay at a restaurant for themselves and more. How not to lose face at an anniversary or wedding in Canada.
Hello, my friends! One day I was talking about Canadian culture and traditions, and I was asked about other things to know about it. Specifically, I was asked: Is it true that if you invite a woman to a Canadian restaurant, she may prefer to pay for herself? Is that really the case?
Yes, there is such a thing. Not only in Canada, but in North America as a whole, there are somewhat different traditions in this regard. We have a pretty clear-cut tradition about that. That is, if you invite somebody to your house or to a restaurant, be it a lady or a friend, you have to pay for it. Maybe something has changed now, but at least it used to be that way.
Here in Canada, it’s not like that. If, say, you invite a woman to a restaurant for the first time, don’t be surprised if she chooses to pay for herself. Here it’s called “going dutch” or “doing dutch,” sometimes they say “dutch deit.” The point? I haven’t gone because I’m a married man, but I’ve heard of it more than once. The point is that we sometimes have jokes in the Russian language, a little too straightforward, one of which says: whoever treats a girl, dances her.
The first trip to a Canadian restaurant with a man
Canadian women are more independent in this sense, they often earn good money, and the lady may well go to the restaurant herself and pay for themselves, and for you may pay. But that’s not the point, of course. The point is that if the guy invites a girl for the first time, she usually thinks something like this: “Let’s you and I go to a restaurant, we’ll sit, have a meal, talk, and then, depending on how our relationship will develop, I have already decided whether I want to continue with you to dance or not. So don’t be surprised if at the end she suddenly wishes to pay for herself.
I realize that for people who are used to a different standard of relationship, this sounds rather unusual. But, as I’ve said many times before, be more open minded, that is, don’t try to follow only some of your traditions. It might be a little different here.
When a guest pays for himself in a Canadian restaurant
The second reason why this is popular here. Let’s say you are invited by your friends, acquaintances to go to a restaurant as a couple. Let’s say that they invite you to an upscale, relatively expensive restaurant. The main dish there costs about $20-25. Meaning main dish on the menu, beef (beefsteak) or something fried. The upscale restaurant is more expensive, more prestigious where the main dish may cost $40 or $50 or even more. And from this it is quite clear that if you go with, say, your spouse, then including alcohol, all kinds of appetizers, salads, cakes, ice cream, your bill (bill) per person could end up being, say, $100. If you go with your spouse, it could be $200. And then if you know you’re invited to a restaurant and they pay for you, you may not always feel comfortable because you don’t want to put your acquaintances and friends in a position where they have to shell out a decent amount for you. As a result, such an outing loses its meaning, because people, knowing that they’re being paid for, are often embarrassed and say, “Let’s have some humble salad, some fried potatoes.
So here it’s considered that “we invited you to the restaurant, everyone pays for himself.” And if it’s some kind of birthday or some round date, then people, in addition to paying for themselves at the restaurant, they’ll also, let’s say, bring some kind of gift, maybe a bouquet of flowers, a vase – who’s going to give what.
That is, again, don’t rush to condemn such orders, because when you start to think about them, you understand that they make quite a lot of sense.
The next point, which has also been asked about. When our compatriots come to Canada, they may be invited to a Russian restaurant for somebody’s birthday or a wedding, and they often don’t know how to behave in this situation. Here the tradition on this subject is already quite formed, and I will tell you approximately how it looks like.
Why Canadians celebrate in a restaurant
If you are invited to a restaurant, you have to ask yourself, first of all, why are you invited to a restaurant? Because, let’s say, if a person decides to celebrate, say, his fiftieth birthday, he wants to invite, for example, fifty people. We both know what it means to invite fifty people. If the person lives in an apartment, it is actually unrealistic to do this at all. If he lives in a house, the house must be quite large to accommodate that many people.
In addition, imagine how much food would have to be prepared in order to feed such a “horde” of people. The hostess has to get up at 5 a.m. to get everything ready, plus she calls her matchmaker, her mother, I don’t know, someone else to help. So the two or three of them cook all day, and then everything has to be covered and polished, and the whole house has to be cleaned so that it is neat and tidy. As a result, as you understand, this whole birthday party is no fun for her, because she’s already exhausted. Plus, when all these guests have had a good snack, ate and drank, then you have to escort them home, each of them. And after that you have a huge pile of dishes, which you then have to wash all, take off the tablecloth, and again arrange the furniture in its places. So you know exactly what I’m talking about.
That is why it is very popular here to invite people to a restaurant, because you can invite 50 or 60 or 70 people, it makes no difference, because the restaurant will set as many tables as you need.
How much money do you give in Canada?
Usually everyone in Canada knows that a table at a Russian restaurant costs, let’s say, $50. That’s usually about the number. What do people do? You go with your wife to a restaurant to celebrate your friends’ event, you take a paper envelope with you. In it, you put $50 for yourself and $50 for your spouse. That’s $100. This is a perfectly normal practice here, there’s no shame in it, that you have to tuck it away somewhere, hide it, no, it’s done quite openly, because everyone knows these rules of the game. In addition to this, if it’s, let’s say, people who are very dear to you in some way or your close friends, you want to give them something else, then it happens in the following way. You give the person some kind of bouquet, you give them an envelope with your $100 plus you can give them a lamp, I don’t know, a vase, a jug – what you want to give them is up to you.
What do a lot of people do? They say, “Look, I don’t know what to get,” because it’s always a headache, you never know how to choose these gifts, you never know if you’re going to please with this gift or not. “Let’s keep it simple,” we set a budget for ourselves that we’re willing to buy them something for, say, $50, or if it’s your loved ones of some kind, good friends, you want a more expensive gift for them, maybe $100. People simply, often add this $50 or $100 to this envelope where there’s already $100.
This is the practice. In other words, there is nothing so complicated. And, as you understand, this has become very popular here. A lot of people think it is much easier, more convenient, and more practical.
You see, it depends on the situation.
Here’s such a short summary of North American traditions. Going back to “dutch going,” or having people pay for themselves, I would say this: don’t put too much thought into it. If you invite friends or acquaintances, or let’s say a man invites a woman from the former Soviet Union or CIS countries, then do it the way you’re used to doing it. Because your traditions are kept in your head, and this woman, if she comes from the CIS countries, they are most likely exactly the same as yours. So you don’t have any discrepancy. Act as you normally do.
If you want to make such an offer to a Canadian woman, invite her to a restaurant, or an American woman, there is nothing wrong with that. Offer to pay for her, but if she says, “No thanks, I’ll pay for myself,” don’t insist. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you have a normal relationship in the future, then this issue itself will simply disappear. That’s basically the whole science.