Generous Customer Shocks Restaurant Workers; Pays A Hefty $16,000 Tip For A $37 Tab

A group of waiters and waitresses at a New Hampshire bar and grill got the surprise of their life when a generous patron paid it forward in a big way.

A restaurant patron who showed up at the Stumble Inn Bar & Grill in Londonderry ordered hot dogs, cocktails, and fried pickles which totaled just over $37. The mystery man who had been sitting alone on an outdoor patio left a whopping $16,000 tip, according to NBC Boston.

“I thought it was a mistake,” the restaurant’s owner, Mike Zarella, said in the interview. “Typo.”

After the customer confirmed that the amount was not a mistake or joke, the staff was overjoyed and could hardly contain themselves. The bar and grill’s staff split tips between eight employees, waiters, waitresses, and even the cook.

“It’s just been a really rough year for all of us. For someone to do something like that really restored my faith in humanity. He just said that we work really hard and he wanted to do something nice and he just really wanted us to have it,” bartender Michelle McCudden told NBC Boston.

Overall profit losses can still be felt in the restaurant industry, even as pandemic restrictions ease. Quartz analyzed changes in restaurant employment. Daniel Zhao—who works as an economist at the job recruiting website known as Glassdoor— noted the high rate of hospitality and restaurant industry workers who are exiting the industry.

“There may be a permanently lower number of workers available to restaurants as workers who left the industry during the pandemic decide to move on to greener pastures,” Zhao informed Quartz by email.

Lack of workers led some employers to raise wage offers to give incentives to stay or return.

The tip this staff received is certainly a notable incentive.