Waffle House Denies Waitress $1,000 Tip — Here's How She Got It Back
A waitress at a Waffle House in Raleigh, N.C., Waffle House received a $1,000 tip from a generous patron last month — but when her manager wouldn’t allow her to keep it, the customer made sure she received it anyway.
Single mom Shaina Brown, 26, was working the overnight shift on Mother’s Day when a man came into the restaurant. After Brown took the man’s order — coffee and a Texas bacon patty melt with loaded hash browns — the pair started chatting. Brown told the man that she was a full-time student and part-time waitress providing for her three children, ages 9, 8, and 1. “Then he said, ‘I’m going to bless you tonight,’” Brown tells Yahoo Shine. “I assumed he meant with a $10 tip.”
However, the man told Brown he wanted to give her more than that — would $1,500 do? She would receive $1,000 and the remaining $500 would be given to a woman sitting in the booth behind him. The man had overheard her offering Brown a necklace as a Mother’s Day gift and wanted to reward her for her kindness.
“I was completely shocked. I had never received such a large tip before,” says Brown. “He asked if I would get it if he left it on his American Express credit card. I said yes, but I had to wait until my manager arrived at 7 a.m.” The man declined to tell Brown his name, finished his meal, and left in a cab.
When Brown’s manager arrived, he had bad news: She couldn’t keep the tip due to a company policy which states that wait staff can only keep large tips left in cash or via check. However, the man had left Brown his cell phone number in case there were any problems, so she had her manager call him. Although the man confirmed that he indeed wanted to leave her amount, Brown’s manager still said no and didn't give her the back the number.
“I was really disappointed because I could have done so much with that money — fix my car’s transmission, put down money for a new one, paid some student loans, or otherwise provided for my kids,” says Brown. “The worst part was that I didn’t have the man's phone number anymore because I had given it to my manager.”
Brown decided to reach out to a reporter at Raleigh newspaper The News & Observer in an effort to reach the man. The reporter did some investigating and tracked him down — he is a wealthy restaurant owner in Raleigh — and gave him Brown’s phone number.
Last week, the pair met at one of his Raleigh restaurants and the man (who still wishes to remain anonymous, according to Brown) wrote her a personal check for $1,000. “I am so grateful to him and I plan to stop by his restaurant soon so we can share a meal,” she says.
Big tippers have been sweeping the country lately. In February, three waitresses in Illinois each received a $5,000 check from an unidentified woman eating an omelet alone at a nearby table. After asking for their names, she wrote checks to all the women, explaining that she had overheard their conversation about the high cost of student loans. And in October, an Oregon bartender received a $17,500 winning Keno ticket in lieu of a tip from one of her regular customers. "I absolutely just want to pay it forward. I don't intend to keep all that money for myself," the waitress told ABC News.
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