Son gets job then takes family for meal—his reaction to bill is “priceless”

A father of seven has shared footage of the moment his eldest son was handed the bill after deciding to treat the family to dinner out.

Miguel Arroyo who runs Splash Brothers, a professional painting business based out of Mesquite, Texas, took to TikTok to post a video of a proud dad moment as he passed the check to his son Isaac at the end of the table.

“When your oldest son finally has a real job now and invites the whole family to eat for the first time,” a caption accompanying the video states.

“He just graduated from college and works for Dallas County,” Arroyo told Newsweek. “We are a big family so it’s always expensive.”

In 2024, a survey of 2,000 U.S. adults conducted by OnePoll on behalf of The Habit Burger highlighted how financial worries have impacted their enjoyment of dining out.

The survey found 67 percent of respondents feel guilty when dining out with 39 percent admitting to decreasing their dining-out budget over the previous year. At the same time, 78 percent of those polled said they felt restaurant prices had increased over the past year.

As a father of seven, Arroyo has felt this squeeze more than most, so he was only too happy to pass the cost onto his son on this occasion.

He suspects Isaac was not entirely aware of quite how much it would cost him to pay for everything. “We ate at the Seapot in Plano,” Arroyo said. “He volunteered to pay not knowing how much Korean barbecue was.”

So, when a check for a little over $330 arrived at the end of the meal, Arroyo was keen to capture his son’s reaction on camera. Isaac’s look of shock and surprise at the total amount was a “priceless” one to his dad, who found his reaction amusing to say the least.

After years of footing the bill for the family on occasions like this, Arroyo felt his son “finally appreciated how much these dinners cost.”

Though it may have set his son back a significant amount, Arroyo was keen to stress that the amount on the final bill should never be the main focus when it comes to occasions like this.

“I told him to not worry about the cost,” Arroyo said. “The memories we are creating are forever.”

With six young siblings growing up fast and set to enter the world of work in the coming years, Arroyo is looking forward to a few more meals like this in the not too distant future. “He [Isaac] just started a tradition,” he said.