Many of us know that servers in the United States can be legally paid less than the federal minimum wage as long as their earnings per hour equal that of standard minimum wage once their tips are added to their usual salary. Due to this, servers rely heavily on tips from customers to make enough money each paycheck.
Knowing the latter information, you may feel more compelled to tip your local waiter or waitress for providing their service. After the pretax bill, it’s recommended that customers leave 15 to 20 percent as a tip. However, some people will generously tip more if they particularly liked their server, like in the case of billionaire and CEO, Ernie Boch Jr., who recently tipped a waitress $5,000!
Boch Jr. was dining with a group at the Seaglass Restaurant in Salisbury, Maryland just this past Saturday after a concert at the Blue Ocean Music Hall. Delighted by Waitress Jennifer Navaria’s friendly demeanor and phenomenal service, Boch Jr. was quick to treat her with the large tip.
At first, the server thought the table was tipping her $50 on the $157.56 tab, but then she realized there were four digits in front of the decimal point when she read the “total” on the receipt that her customer had manually wrote.
Completely shocked, the waitress asked the table who left the tip.
“I said, ‘You made my night,’ but, really, he made my month,” Navaria recalled.
She then asked Boch Jr. for permission to post an image of the receipt on social media, to which he agreed.
On Monday, the server posted the receipt on Facebook along with the caption, “Thank you Ernie Boch for your amazing generosity! You certainly made a job I really enjoy that much better.”
Many people across the nation and beyond are partaking in the 2020 tip challenge, which requires them to use the current year in the tip, regardless of where the decimal point may land. Applicable tip options include $20.20, $202.0[0], or if you’re feeling really giving, $2,020, which is the tip amount that struggling server, Danielle Franzoni from Michigan, received to ring in the New Year! In fact, Franzoni’s big tip was the reason the challenge became popular from the start.
For Boch Jr., he was inspired by a different $2,020 tipper named Donnie Wahlberg, only that he decided to take that tip challenge a little further as his income and generosity allowed.
“I saw the post that someone did about Donnie and the challenge, and I thought it was really cool. I don’t go out to eat that often, but when I do, it’s kind of an event, so I kept it in the back of my head,” Boch Jr. said.
Boch Jr. even wrote on Jennifer’s receipt, “Donnie, your move.”
“Let’s keep it going. I’m not just challenging Donnie. I’m challenging anyone with the means to take care of the people that take care of us.”
Although most people won’t be able to afford to tip the amount that these viral challenge tippers have, I like the way they think! Even if you’re unable to tip this large, perhaps next time you go out, you could tip a few dollars more than you normally would to show a little extra appreciation for your fellow service worker.
Check out the WCVB Channel 5 Boston interview with Boch Jr. and Navaria below.
