A waitress was blessed with an incredibly generous tip from serving the table of a party... only to get fired shortly thereafter.
According to KansasCity.com, the waitress and one of her server co-workers were the recipient of a $4,400 tip thanks to a "$100 dinner club" where each person having dinner leaves a $100 tip as a way of paying it forward.
Grant Wise, who orchestrated the kind act says, "We knew servers really hit hard through COVID and it was something that (a friend) had come up with to help give back."
He says he called the restaurant, Oven & Tap, to double-check their tipping policy before his group dined.
One of the servers, Ryan Brandt, was seen in tears after finding out the diners were leaving her a $2,200 tip in cash.
Brandt says a half hour after getting the tip, a manager told her to fork over the cash and that she could only keep 20% of it and that the rest would be split between other workers. Brandt says she was never asked to hand over her tips to be shared ever before. Wise says after he learned what was happening, he took the tip money back, then handed it to her outside of the restaurant.
After Ryan refused to share the $2,200 tip, she says she was fired over the phone. Brandt claims she had worked at the restaurant for 3-and-a-half years.
The owners of Oven & Tap said, "The server who was terminated... was not let go because she chose to keep the tip money."
The owners also added that tip-sharing was a common practice in the industry. The other server is still employed but it's not clear if they kept their $2,200 or handed the 80% over.
According to Wise, who set up a GoFundMe for Brandt after she was fired, she was offered a position at another restaurant and took it.
Source: KansasCity.com