What's your Check Please hand signal, and what does it signify?

December 2, 2022 3:16 PM

I was just out with for lunch with a friend at a busy place and did my usual eye-contact-hand-signal request to clear out to the passing server, and that turned into a conversation about what, exactly, that hand signal actually means in like semantic terms.

My personal take has always been that I'm sort of stabbing down at the table with my index finger a couple times in quick succession, as if to say "hey, right here is where the check should appear at some point in the near future." My friend thought my hand movement had instead been the down-then-up of making a checkmark with my finger, as if to say "check please". We asked the waiter when she showed up and she said that those both make sense but that she tends to think of it as [elaborate thumb-index-middle squiggle] signing a check, as if to say "this is what I will do to the check when you bring it to me."

I don't think there's a definitive answer to this, but I'm curious where various folks fall on these or other possible intentions/interpretations of these hand gestures.

I'll note that (a) I'm in the US and (b) I've never worked in food service so I'm especially interested in interpretations from folks who have experience in that domain and clarifications about international contexts, though this is a general enough experience for eaters and servers alike that I'm really curious about the broad spectrum of experiences and interpretations.

posted by cortex to Society & Culture (51 answers total)

The third, for sure.
posted by praemunire at 3:25 PM on December 2, 2022 [28 favorites]

I (Canadian) make friendly eye contact, half smile, while raising my chin and eyebrows, and hold my hand near my face while I rub the index finger and thumb pads together (like a sign for "money"). I think it's the eye contact that does it though.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 3:33 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I would guess that food service people interpret most gestures they receive at the meal's end as "check please". My father-in-law does a gesture where he puts his fingertips together (like the ASL for "more") and pulls them apart from each other as though stretching an invisible taffy.
posted by xo at 3:35 PM on December 2, 2022 [10 favorites]

I waited tables for twenty years. I always interpreted those wiggly waggly finger routines as the third option. Once or twice someone did give me a clear check shaped motion like option two but not often. People miming holding a tiny pen and signing the air was the norm in my area (US Midwest and northeast)

Both options two and three make your request clear to servers. Stabbing the table with your finger would confuse me personally. That could mean any number of things like maybe you dropped your fork and want a new one. If I saw you poking the table I would ask you what I could get you.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 3:43 PM on December 2, 2022 [24 favorites]

This is a topic of some interest to me and my friends as well, and we've collected 4 main methods:

1. Signing the check squiggle (which is how I would interpret your gesture, probably)
2. Drawing a rectangle, presumably a check, with the thumb/forefingers of both hands
3. Pointing down at our table and drawing a small circle with the index finger (possibly signifying "let's wrap this up", sometimes misinterpreted as "can we pack this up")
4. My least favourite: flagging down the server and asking for the check (so inefficient, ugh!)

Usually I will try to also mouth "check" (or if at a Chinese restaurant, "mai dan") as a backup signal.
posted by btfreek at 3:47 PM on December 2, 2022

When I do it, I'm miming someone writing in mid-air, imagining them writing up our final bill on paper and bringing it to us, even though very few places probably still keep track of bills manually on paper these days (I assume it's usually done digitally and printed out). But the gesture has stuck, for me at least.

It's definitely not me writing out a cheque, as that hasn't been a thing in the UK for about 25 years, except in very occasional "Oh shit, where's my chequebook, I haven't used it in the last decade?"-type circumstances.
posted by penguin pie at 3:47 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I always hold my hand up (no higher than my face) and make like I'm holding a pen and doing a little squiggle like I'm signing a check. I was always under the impression that this was universal but here I am once again finding out everything I know is wrong.

US, East coast.
posted by bondcliff at 3:56 PM on December 2, 2022 [10 favorites]

It’s a signing gesture.

It’s definitely not a checkmark gesture. In most of the world (including most of the English speaking world) the word for the piece of paper with your fee on it is not the same as the word for the a check mark, and yet this gesture is universal.
posted by caek at 4:01 PM on December 2, 2022 [11 favorites]

I have seen (as a server) and done a two handed version where one hand is mimicking writing on the other hand making it obvious that it’s signing a cheque (Canadian if you can’t tell from that spelling).
posted by hydrobatidae at 4:04 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Signing in midair — it never occurred to me there were other variations.
posted by LizardBreath at 4:14 PM on December 2, 2022 [9 favorites]

Also signing in midair.

Tbh tapping on the table seems a bit peremptory and rude - like "stand attendance here, underling!" But that's purely based on how I'm imagining it - I don't think I've ever seen it in person ;-)
posted by trig at 4:33 PM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]

I snap my fingers and yell “garçon!”

Not really, I do the quickly sign-the-check move, usually with great embarrassment.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:37 PM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

Signing on the other, flattened hand, as if that hand were a pad.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 4:40 PM on December 2, 2022 [9 favorites]

I've done the same as ivanthenotsoterrible everywhere I've traveled in the world, while mangling the pronunciation of the local word for "check." It seems to work.
posted by Floydd at 5:14 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

In Canada, amongst the various people I've eaten out with, the signal has been getting out our debit cards at the end of the meal. Which usually prompts the server to either ask us if we're ready for the bills and/or comes over with the bills and their handy debit machine ready to go.
posted by VirginiaPlain at 5:24 PM on December 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

I'm also an American and I do the writing/signing/filling out a tab in mid-air thing, though I picked up drawing-a-rectangle somewhere (maybe Taiwan?).

Honestly I suspect almost any non-rude gesture + eye contact will succeed, if you're in a place where the custom is to bring a bill at the end of a meal, and the time has come when your plates are empty.
posted by wintersweet at 5:26 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Ah, I have also done the get-out-the-credit-card-and-put-it-toward-the-edge-of-the-table thing (usually when I don't want to interrupt the conversations that are going on), which I guess you could consider a gesture.

Honestly it's almost getting hard to remember at this point, it's been so long since I've eaten inside a restaurant or bar!
posted by wintersweet at 5:28 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Signing in midair, but usually eye contact will do it, if I can make eye contact at all with them at all.
posted by janell at 5:43 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Signing on the other, flattened hand, as if that hand were a pad.

Yes, a lot of people will/used to make this a two handed gesture with one palm flat and the other pantomiming writing. This is a pretty old gesture, restaurants didn't all used to have computers and printers, bills were hand written and weren't finalized until someone made sure everything was on there and added it all up and figured out the tax and wrote down the total. I think the scribbling is to let the server know to write up the bill and the gesture hasn't been updated (like the floppy disk save icon) because pantomiming typing on a keyboard over your head or pressing buttons in the air like Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic would look even sillier.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:01 PM on December 2, 2022

I’m realizing now that I (34) think of the hand signing move as me (the customer) signing the receipt as is done with American credit cards. The signing motion has always worked for me in Western Europe even though chip and pin is the norm!
posted by raccoon409 at 6:23 PM on December 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

I didn't even know people did this sort of gesture, I always just do eye contact and a raised index finger meaning "I need attention please," same as I would do to get a worker's attention at a store.

Or if I'm in a hurry, wave a credit card.

But then again I'm socially inept.
posted by mmoncur at 7:11 PM on December 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

I absolutely write a signature in the air, hoping for the opportunity to write a signature on the check.
posted by aubilenon at 7:12 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Definitely the "make eye contact and sign something invisible in the air" thing for me. Swedish, living on the US east coast. If it's super busy and I can't catch their eye easily, I might point straight up (like raising my hand in class but with my index finger out), which usually is enough of an oddity that I get noticed and can do the first part.

Funny aside: On our first day in China, an older student in my program took us out for lunch. He told us that the way to ask for the check was to make a huge clockwise circle with your arm, pointing down at the table and going around and around a few times. One of my classmates didn't realize he was putting us on, and we died laughing when he tried it at the end of the meal, lol.
posted by gemmy at 7:15 PM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]

I worked in restaurants and presumably people used these signals on me and presumably they worked. But until today I had no idea about any of this, on those rare pre-pandemic occasions when I went to restaurants with like servers and such, I would make eye contact and tentatively raise my hand like I was taught in school.

In school raising my hand high in the air signified pick-me-pick-me and in restaurants raising my hand just enough to get recognition in the server's face signified "hey when you have a spare moment can I give you a pile of money please?"
posted by aniola at 7:25 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

I almost allways take half my meal home, my version of diet, so hold both hands up with my thumbs and forefingers making a square. When my server brings a box, either they also bring the check, or I ask for it then.
posted by BoscosMom at 7:47 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

The squiggle signature in air.
Never had anyone misinterpret this in any country.
posted by artdrectr at 7:56 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Wow this is so wild, I did not know this was a thing (the two handed variation has especially floored me!). For me it’s always been just eye contact and maybe raising my hand a little bit but never anything like this.
posted by raisindebt at 8:58 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Interesting. I do the "squggle in air" gesture, basically I held my hand in the air as if holding a pen, catches the waiter / waitress's eye, and wave my hand with the imaginary pen as if signing something in the air.
posted by kschang at 9:30 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was in a small group that had been travelling in China, and we had one meal without our Chinese-speaking host. Half of the group huddled around a phrasebook, flipping to find the section with asking for the check, then just as they were about to try and pronounce the phrase, the check almost magically arrived.

Because the other half of the group - the half that had travelled independently in China before the meal - had caught the server's eye and done the write-on-the-hand sign while they were buried in the phrase book. (Which I've always interpreted as asking the server to write down what we owe them, rather than signing - I've almost never signed anything at a meal.)

The idea of a v-shaped 'check' mark makes little sense, since that's a primarily American thing. In British English (and IIRC in Canada) you'd ask the server for the 'bill' -- I've never made a duck hand signal. In French, it's l'addition, same as the basic mathematical operation. In Spanish and Portuguese respectively, it's la cuenta and a conta, which has a number of meanings where in English we would use the count or the account. (Cuenta/conta also means bead - which seems odd until you think of a rosary.)
posted by Superilla at 9:44 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Which I've always interpreted as asking the server to write down what we owe them, rather than signing - I've almost never signed anything at a meal

The thing is, it's ambiguous whether you're asking them to write up the ticket (for those of us who eat in old-school diners, or did) or whether you're signifying signing the receipt--works either way!
posted by praemunire at 9:48 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

(The problem with just raising a hand or other attention-getting gesture is that it means the server has to come over and ask for the check then go back for it, rather than bringing it right away, which wastes their time.

Speaking of which: is there an ASL gesture for "check, please?")
posted by praemunire at 9:49 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I once did the "signing in the air" gesture in Barcelona and my waiter gave me so much shit about it. "what's that supposed to mean?? Is this since kind of sign language?? Where are you from anyway??" I was totally mortified. It was my first time traveling by myself and pretty early in the trip and I felt I'd failed since very fundamental "seeming normal" test.

It occurs to me now that maybe he was fucking with me, haha.
posted by potrzebie at 10:12 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yup, signing in the air. Never fails anywhere I've been. (And i mime opening a book for the menu). Tapping the table for the bill wouldn't have been understood where I am (it could be taken as our order hasn't arrived, what's up with that??).
posted by cendawanita at 10:33 PM on December 2, 2022

Writing motion, but not miming me signing a check or credit card printout, but miming the waiter tallying up the amounts of all items on a small paper pad (my other hand, at a bit of a distance). I only realized now that this is what I’m doing, and this is how the waiters came up with the amount when I grew up. And then they put the cash into their big fat black wallets.
posted by meijusa at 10:55 PM on December 2, 2022

I typically use the card on table method, nowadays.

I would tend to think of a signing squiggle as signing a credit card slip, but I've never once paid with an actual check.

I think it was Japan where we used to use two index fingers crossed in an X sign. Very different to what people are describing here, and like an (American) checkmark in a checkbox.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 11:18 PM on December 2, 2022

The idea of a v-shaped 'check' mark makes little sense, since that's a primarily American thing. In British English (and IIRC in Canada) you'd ask the server for the 'bill'

Also, the shape known as a check mark in the US, is called a tick in British English, not a check. So you'd be making a tick to ask for the bill, not a check to ask for the check!

That said, I've never been aware of anyone making a tick/check in the air to ask for the bill in the UK, so maybe that... checks out :)
posted by penguin pie at 2:59 AM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've never used a hand-gesture in the air, beyond raising a finger to get the server's attention as they went by and asking for the check.

If I don't manage to catch their attention when they walk by, I'll set my debit card at the edge of the table to signal I'm ready to pay. If they are really really ignoring me, I will grab my coat and purse and stand beside the table to create the subtle suggestion that "this person really needs to get out of here."
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:07 AM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

In the UK. To say "can I have the bill" I usually do the "signing something in the air" motion, which I always think of as signing a cheque to pay the bill, even though it's been decades since I paid for anything in a shop or restaurant with a cheque.

I wouldn't just raise a finger or something because, to me, that indicates "I need something, can you come over here".

If anyone knows the gesture for "can I have the bill but also can you bring the card reader at the same time so I don't have to do another gesture later so that I can actually pay" that would be a great help. Just waving a card, instead of doing the signing gesture, doesn't always do the trick.
posted by fabius at 5:24 AM on December 3, 2022

Ever since having kids, we're always asking for the check early so this doesn't really come up anymore.

But I would always open up my left hand and pretend to scribble on it with my right hand.

That being said, I would always accompany this by asking them can I have the check please? I'd do the motion even if I was asking them in passing, and try to say it even if they were standing across the room. It's a package deal.
posted by cali59 at 5:40 AM on December 3, 2022

A non-Japanese friend who lived in Japan for the entire 2000s said they held up both hands to made an X with their two index fingers (pointing upwards). To his knowledge it doesn’t signify anything.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:04 AM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

I usually just try to get the server's attention with no specific gesture, but I do occasionally use the "writing" gesture and I've always interpreted it to mean "can you please write up the check for me" (with the understanding that nowadays it is very rare that any actual writing-with-a-pen would be involved, although old-school diners, dim sum places, etc. may involve some amount of manual tallying).

I can see why people would interpret it as "please bring me the thing to sign" but the "writing" gesture predates the time when the person *dining* would be likely to do any writing - you don't write when you pay your restaurant bill in cash, which was the most common situation before credit/debit cards became widespread. So perhaps its meaning is evolving! And as contactless payment/chip and pin becomes ubiquitous, the gesture seems like it will become even more abstract - already "scribbling on your hand" can mean "please bring the contactless card reader to my table," in which case no pens are involved at all!
posted by mskyle at 7:41 AM on December 3, 2022

Wiggle my pencil fingers signing an invisible credit card slip. Canada.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:29 PM on December 3, 2022

Make eye contact with the wait staff. Raise one hand, palm open. Draw across that palm with index finger, using other hand.

Canada.
posted by seawallrunner at 3:10 PM on December 3, 2022

Response by poster: This is all interesting, and the preponderance of variations on "wiggling writingish motion" feels unsurprising in retrospect. More generally it does seem like the key thing is not the literal semantics of any given motion, but the general way it operates as a distinct, non-generic request for attention in a context where motioning for the check is by far the most likely thing to matter as a signal. Eye contact and a raised hand wiggling around a little: probably means bring the check, regardless of the specific wiggles.

Stabbing the table with your finger would confuse me personally.

Oh, to be clear it's not a like stabbing-the-tabletop thing; it's just a mid air wiggling of the finger that I've internalized as a sort of understated pointing down gesture semantically. It could just as reasonably be interpreted as me making a little worm puppet, or just waving a finger, or, whatever.

One thing that jumps out at me to wonder about, reading through folks' answers and where they agree and diverge: this isn't something I was ever taught, and I wonder how much that is or isn't the case for other people. No one said to me "here's how you flag down a waiter for a check", it's just one of those cultural osmosis things I picked up on in early adulthood between going out to eat with other folks and watching movies and TV, etc. To the extent that different people have different takes on it, I wonder how much that is regional/locale specific and how much of that is just idiolectic noise from person to person as people acquired different variations and interpretations from context.
posted by cortex at 3:34 PM on December 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Signing gesture in the air. It represents signing the credit card slip. Grew up in Seattle area.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:07 PM on December 3, 2022

I (in Australia formerly New Zealand) always make the 'signing' motion with one hand after catching the eye of the waiter. Pretty sure I learned this from watching films, as we never went out anywhere to eat when I was a kid. I'm not sure why, but I feel like it originally represented signing the bill, as you would if you were staying at a hotel and signing the receipt to have it added to your overall bill to be paid on check-out.
posted by dg at 5:15 PM on December 4, 2022

It is signing in mid air and it's bemusing that anyone thinks otherwise. Clearly the consensus here back's that up.

It's not taught because it's pretty obvious and unambiguous all across the world.
posted by turkeyphant at 7:26 PM on December 4, 2022

Counterpoint: I'm in my 50s and this thread is the first time I've ever heard of the signing-in-air gesture, and I've never seen anyone do it.

I guess I've mostly been in suburban or small-town restaurants where it's pretty easy to get a waiter's attention just by making eye contact, and 90% of the time they come by to check on the table anyway.
posted by mmoncur at 10:37 PM on December 4, 2022

The third, but as someone who worked as a waitress back in the day, at a place where people rarely paid with credit cards, the pen squiggle thing is actually "please give me the check on which you have handwritten my order and what I owe." Example image. (Signing the credit card slip! lol) I see a few people above have mentioned this. People would make that signal and I would actually use a pen to write something.
posted by slidell at 5:10 AM on December 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

In the Philippines it seems customary to draw a rectangle in the air.
posted by Mngo at 4:17 AM on December 6, 2022

In the UK, I've migrated from "signing my hand" to "my hand is a key pad, beep boop pressing buttons on my palm" and that seems to be well-understood as "please bring the bill and the card terminal at the same time". We know we're paying by card, there's no need for the waiter to bring the bill and then have to come back with the card machine.

(Of course that only makes sense in a locale where chip-and-pin card machines are normal and wireless and routinely brought-to-table.)

Incidentally, my mum came up with the phrase "playing meerkats" for that slightly awkward phase when you're sat bolt upright and looking around specifically trying to get eye contact with the waiter, to enable the gesture-exchange to occur.
posted by BuxtonTheRed at 4:57 AM on December 6, 2022 [3 favorites]