A man left a $10,000 tip on a $32 bill at a Michigan restaurant. The manager says it was a tribute to a friend who recently died.
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- A customer tipped a server at a Michigan restaurant $10,000.
- The server shared the amount with eight other staff members.
- On average, people in the US tip 16% of their bill when dining out.
A man left a $10,000 tip on a $32 bill while dining out at a restaurant in Michigan.
In a Facebook post on February 6, The Mason Jar Cafe said a customer left a massive tip after having breakfast at the restaurant. The Mason Jar Cafe is located in Benton Harbor, Michigan, a city known for its beaches and rivers.
"I'M CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING, WE'RE ALL CRYING," the restaurant wrote in the post, which had garnered 3,100 reactions and 361 comments by the time of writing. The restaurant also shared a picture of the receipt, which showed the transaction occurred on February 5. The customer's full name is blurred out, and he is only identified by his first name, Mark.
The bill was $32.43, the photo of the receipt shows. The suggested tip amount on the receipt was between 20% and 25%, or from $5.95 to $7.44.
But the customer didn't take those suggestions.
Instead, a sum of $10,000 was written in as the tip, bringing the customer's total bill to $10,032.43. Business Insider could not independently verify the receipt.
"In a time where so much is happening, we wanted to share and thank the person who did this life changing act," the restaurant continued writing on Facebook.
The restaurant's manager, Tim Sweeney, told the local broadcaster WOOD-TV that the man made the tip as a tribute to a friend who had recently died. Sweeney said the man was in Benton Harbor to attend his friend's funeral.
"Typically, we'll see every now and then $100," Sweeney told WOOD-TV of tips. "But not ever anything of this gratitude or magnitude," he continued.
The tip of $10,000 meant the man had tipped 30,835% of his bill.
Sweeney said the server shared the tip with eight other staff members who were working that day.
"It was just really an act of kindness that impacted so many people," Paige Mulick, who was working at the restaurant that day, told WOOD-TV. Mulick, who's a recent graduate of Western Michigan University, said the money will help pay off some of her student loans.
"We work hard. We know that some days you're going to make more and some days you're going to make less. That's just part of how it goes. But we hustle hard and I think that a lot of people really deserve this," she added.
On average, people in the US tip 16% of their bill when dining out, per Forbes' 2023 Digital Tipping Culture Survey.
It's not the first time a customer has left thousand-dollar tips on a small bill. In September, a group of people dining at a Mexican restaurant in Utah left a $10,000 tip. And in July 2022, a customer at a Pennsylvania restaurant left a $3,000 tip on a $13.25 bill.
The Mason Jar Cafe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular office hours.