Customer tipped staff $16,000 after ‘really rough year’ for restaurants

A customer at a restaurant in Londonderry, N.H., left a $16,000 tip for staff after ordering just $37 worth of food and drinks, an act that one employee said “really restored my faith in humanity.”

NBC10 Boston reported that a man dining by himself at the outdoor bar at the Stumble Inn Bar & Grill on June 12 left the big tip.

Bartender Michelle McCudden described the customer, who ordered a couple of hot dogs, some cocktails and fried pickles, as “kind of a mystery man” in an interview with the outlet.

Employees were left in shock when they discovered the customer had left a $16,000 tip.

“I thought it was a mistake,” restaurant owner Mike Zarella told NBC10 Boston. “Typo.”

The customer, however, assured the staff members that the tip was not a joke, according to the television station.

“I’ve been doing this a very long time and I never thought anything like this would happen to me,” McCudden said.

The tip was divided between the eight workers on duty that night, along with the cooks.

McCudden said the employees working that night went up and thanked the customer.

“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,” McCudden said.

The National Restaurant Association in December estimated that more than 110,000 restaurants had permanently closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That number, according to the advocacy group, translated to 17 percent of restaurants.