Waiter fired after receiving £3,500 tip from customer
3 May 2023, 14:58
A server was tipped $4,000 in an act of kindness before being fired by the restaurant’s management.
A waiter was fired after receiving a $4,400 (£3,500) tip from a very generous customer she had been tending to.
Ryan Brandt was working at Oven & Tap restaurant in Bentonville, Arkansas last year where she was serving a table of more than 40 real estate executives.
In a very bold move, the table each put forward $100 (£80) as a tip for Ryan and another waiter who was serving to split between them.
Grant Wise, president of a local real estate business, then presented the huge tip to the women as a thank you for their hard work.
The moment was later uploaded to Instagram, with the caption: "I'm humbled to have been part of something so beautiful and generous. To bless someone else without previously knowing them."
She continued: "I have been blessed, so it is wonderful to pay it forward and bless someone else.
- Waiter slams tourists who leave £57 on £569 bill after ‘perfect’ service
- Waitress claims we've all been using salt and pepper shakers wrong
"God bless all who contributed and the servers who received it. I pray it may be multiplied and impact their life for the better."
The video shows Grant giving the cash over, as he said: "Everybody at this table has contributed or tipped $100 for you, and for the other waitress, who unfortunately had to go home because she wasn't feeling well.
"And then we put it out to our social media channels, and we actually had quite a bit more money sent in. So we are tipping you a total of $4,400 for you to split with the other girl that took care of us."
But the excitement didn’t last long, as the woman was later told she had to hand over the cash.
Ryan told KNWA News: "I was told that I was going to be giving my cash over to my shift manager, and I would be taking home 20 per cent."
She went on to explain that she had worked in the restaurant for three years and had never been told she had to share her tips before.
When Grant found out about the news, he allegedly asked for the money back.
Stacey Solomon enjoys dinner with the family on holiday
But after his group left the restaurant, they gave Ryan her tip outside anyway which reportedly led to her being fired.
“It was devastating,” she told KNWA, continuing: "I borrowed a significant amount of money for student loans.
“Most of them were turned off for the Covid year and a half, and they are turning back on 1 January, and that’s a reality I’m facing.”
In a statement to The Independent, Oven & Tap released a statement which read: “Oven & Tap doesn’t deliver terminations lightly.
“Because we value our employees and highly respect their privacy, we never discuss personnel issues. The server who was terminated several days after the group dined with us was not let go because she chose to keep the tip money.
“Our policy has always been to participate in a tip pool/share with the staff.
“Tip sharing is a common restaurant industry practice that we follow to ensure all of our team members are adequately compensated for their hard work.”
Grant has since started a GoFundMe page on behalf of Ryan Brandt to help pay her bills.
“I’m so saddened to hear that the girl we tipped the other night at our $100 Dinner Club has been fired from her job,” he said.
