It's an easy mistake to make. A customer at a North Carolina restaurant walked out after signing a copy of the credit card receipt, only to later realize they took the merchant copy with them.
By doing so, the server was not given a tip for the meal.
The customer later realized the mix-up and corrected it.
The Side Street Pour House and Grillposted on Facebook that a customer named Ted sent a $20 bill and a letter explaining what happened. Ted said he dined at the restaurant on Dec. 30, and when the transaction posted on Jan. 2, he realized the final amount did not include a tip.
He wanted to make it up to the server, named on the letter as Hope C.
"I can only trust that Hope will forgive me for my blunder," Ted wrote. "Please find enclosed her tip in cash. That was no way for either of us to end 2023."
Good Samaritan reunites with student she helped during UNLV shooting
Natalie Matarazzo, paralyzed from the waist down, found herself in the midst of chaos when one bystander reacted with selflessness.
The restaurant said in response to the letter, "If you realize you've made an error, it's never too late to make it right."
"Our servers work hard to give our customers excellent dining experiences and earn their tips, but sometimes either accidentally (like this example) or intentionally (which is really not cool), they find themselves left without," the restaurant wrote. "That's why we are loving this letter so much — it's is (sic) a beautiful example of how to do the right thing."
According to the National Employment Law Project, about 58.5% of servers' wages come from tips. As of May 2022, the average income for a server was $33,020. At the time, the average wage in the U.S. was over $60,000, according to government figures.
