Around 3 a.m. on Mother's Day, Shaina Brown, a waitress at a North Carolina Waffle House, thought she had received a blessing after she served a man a Texas bacon patty melt sandwich. After downing the sandwich, the customer told Brown, "I'm going to bless you tonight," and left her a $1,500 tip on a credit card, with instructions to keep $1,000 for herself and to give $500 to a woman sitting at another table.
"You have a good spirit," he reportedly told Brown.
That is when the single mother's good fortune turned to dust, since Waffle House policy is to send back large credit card tips in case the amount left is disputed, the News & Observer reports. According to a Waffle House spokeswoman who spoke to the News & Observer, large tippers are asked to tip again, if the amount is indeed correct—this time using cash or a check.
"I feel like they stole from me," Brown told Josh Shaffer of the News & Observer. "They did exactly what they teach us not to do."
Shaffer was so befuddled by the news that he tracked down the Raleigh businessman who left the huge tip and confirmed that he did intend to leave such a large amount for Brown. When Shaffer told the businessman, who didn't want to be identified, that Brown was not given the money because of Waffle House policy, the businessman said he would issue her a personal check.
No word on whether the other woman who was eating that Mother's Day morning, and would have received $500 had Waffle House been willing to accept the large tip, has been found.
Read more at the News & Observer.