The Life Hack That’ll Help You Find Raleigh’s Best Restaurant for Group

Sharing a meal with people you love is one of the simple joys of life—a dinner with friends is the perfect way to unwind after a stressful workday, celebrate a milestone, catch up after years apart, or just enjoy an evening together.

It can feel like a huge responsibility (or burden) to be tasked with choosing a restaurant for a group, especially if you know your dining companions have vastly different preferences and proclivities. If you have any people-pleasing tendencies whatsoever, you might agonize at the thought of searching for a restaurant that serves a diverse, allergy-friendly menu that will appeal to everyone in your party. Of course, you also want to find a restaurant that is aesthetically pleasing but not elitist, although by this point, you’re starting to resent your friends for making you choose the restaurant in the first place. To save you from this stress spiral as you search for Raleigh’s best restaurant for group dining, we’ll share our group dining life hack: Choose a restaurant that understands—and embraces—the joy of group dining, and everyone in your party will agree that you’ve found your Place.

3 Signs You’ve Found Raleigh’s Best Restaurant for Group Dining

1. When you call to make reservations, employees sound genuinely delighted to talk to you.

If a restaurant cultivates a positive environment and recognizes the joyful connection of group dining, you can tell from the initial phone call. If the person taking your reservation is kind, upbeat, and eager to discuss the restaurant’s group dining policies, that’s a sign that you should go ahead and secure the reservation. If the person taking reservations acts inconvenienced that you had the audacity to call, this restaurant is not a place that cultivates joy. Politely hang up the phone and strike that restaurant off your list. Making reservations for a group dinner shouldn’t feel like calling to schedule a dentist’s appointment, so pay attention to how the employees make you feel when you make that first call.

2. The restaurant offers a prix fixe menu for group dining.

Any restaurant that frequently serves large groups knows that a prix fixe menu is the only way to seamlessly serve a group and make sure everyone leaves happy. At Margaux’s in Raleigh, chefs create a custom prix fixe menu for each group, so you can order with the blissful knowledge that your three-course prix fixe menu features the freshest seasonal offerings. If you’ve never ordered from a prix fixe menu before, check out Margaux’s sample prix fixe menu to get a preview of the general format.

3. Other diners left glowing reviews about their group dining experience.

Scroll through the restaurant’s website and social media to find out what other people thought about group dining at this restaurant. If you see multiple heartfelt reviews that mention specific details about the restaurant’s servers, the environment, the food, and the overall experience, that’s a great sign that you just found a favorite new hangout for everyone in your group.

Now that you’ve finally found a delicious, welcoming place where you and your loved ones can spend a blissful evening connecting over dinner, you might even want to write a review to help other people find Raleigh’s best restaurant for group dining. That’s the beautiful thing about joy—you want to share it with the whole wide world. When you find a place that sparkles with kindness and joy, where the employees treat your large party like a group of long-lost friends, you’re in the right place.