I'm sure your intentions are good here, but you seem to be going out of your way to misunderstand. TL is not trying to extort donations from people, he's making a commendable and proactive attempt to avoid the inevitable mistakes ...
seriously... 30 people. Sure, there will be massive mistakes. Mistakes of such a grandiose scale that it cannot be fathomed.
No, I actually don't believe that. I am certain that I could easily deal with the math required on a simple napkin and eat my meal at the same time. I wasn't aware that my math skills were so superior that this is a unique skill. I am not misunderstanding, I am simply saying that nobody should have to round out their dollars. And no matter how much you may support Toady One (I fully agree with the sentiment) there is no reason to force it on others. There should be the OPTION, but not be required. If TurnpikeLad is afraid of the potential rounding errors that might occur, I'll happily take over the risk. As for the fear someone will miss their meal, I'm sorry, but I don't have that kind of faith in Pike Brewing's kitchen to believe that they will have the meal out to us fast enough that those who want to do exact change will need to be concerned with.
Tell ya what though, I'll have this nice excel spreadsheet on my laptop that has a formula pre-set, that allows for instant conversion of price of meals to price owed. It's not even hard. Just multiply the Menu price by 1.298 and you have the final price. Will that make everyone feel better about allowing exact change? If Gratuity is taken out of menu price and not taxed, it is Menu*1.28.
There is no reason not to deal with exact change if people are so inclined. I doubt many people will be, but there is no reason not to allow it. Like I said earlier, if this is a problem with you, I will happily take the "cashier" part over from you. It isn't that difficult.