A customer of an Ohio restaurant certainly takes the lead in Santa Claus, leaving a special surprise for the staff this holiday season. The guest left a $ 5,600 tip for the workers, which the owner called “amazing gesture of kindness. “
“This really happened,” Moussa Salloukh wrote on December 13 on the Facebook page of his Toledo restaurant, Souk Mediterranean Kitchen & Bar, which has been open since October 2019. “Last night one of our guests left a $ 5,600 tip to give to all of our staff, whether they worked on that shift or not. “
The chef and owner said each person received $ 200 with the distribution of the gratuity among their 28 employees.
Salloukh also posted a photo of the check that had totaled just $ 0.01 before adding the tip. The benefactor is only identified as “Billy” in the message.
“The words‘ Thank you ’seem inappropriate for this gift … but Thank you Billy, for your generous spirit and for making a difference in the lives of the people I care so much about this holiday,” Salloukh added.
Salloukh explained that generosity was especially “deeply needed and much appreciated” this year, due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
“This is not a normal December,” he wrote in the post. “It’s usually a month when our employees work harder and guests tip generously. December is a month to make money buying family gifts, saving a little and taking care of bills or repairs that have been persistent. and guidelines, that wouldn’t happen to them this year. ”
There have been restaurants, bars and their staff all over the country especially hard by pandemic, having faced several rounds of restrictions as well as costly starts and stops related to the crisis.
The National Restaurant Association estimates that as of December 1, more than 110,000 establishments had closed permanently or temporarily, according to survey data released earlier this month.