It’s usually the tips that make a job as a server in a restaurant more financially attractive, and sometimes you just get tips that are unlike the others.

Against all expectations, the 21-year-old waitress Emily Bauer from Texas received a tip from a happy customer that would turn her life around completely. She saw it as the classic Christmas miracle, but then it was all taken away from her.

A customer tipped Emily no less than $2,000. It wasn’t a mistake, but just an act of kindness and generosity for this hard-working employee.

Emily, who works at the Red Hook Seafood and Bar in San Antonio, never saw this tip coming. She’d only been working there for two weeks and has never expected to be greeted with a tip as large as this one. She received it during a very busy Sunday, as the restaurant was completely packed and people had to wait quite a while until their orders would be taken care of.

Instead of being annoyed about waiting too long, there was one diner in particular who was very calm and friendly.

“He was like ‘It’s okay, I’ve owned restaurants and I understand how it is to be a server.’ I was like ‘thank you for understanding,’” Emily said in an interview with The Post.

However, after a while, the man seemingly got tired of waiting and decided to leave the restaurant.

That doesn’t exactly seem like a happy customer, does it? Turns out it was quite the opposite: the man didn’t file a complaint, but he stilled asked Emily for a bill – even though he never got his drinks!

When Emily saw the bill, she noticed a message that said “Merry Christmas! Keep working hard!”, as well as the massive $2,000 tip.

Of course, Emily couldn’t believe what just happened! She already started thinking that she could give her children a special Christmas.

“I was like ‘oh my gosh’ and I started crying. I was like ‘wow’ and I tried seeing if he was still at the restaurant but he had left already,” Emily recalled. “The first thing that I thought of was my kids. I would be able to finally have a Christmas to give them whatever they want or whatever they need.”

Emily’s magical Christmas miracle came to a shocking halt when her manager simply refused to process the tip.

“He said, ‘Rule No. 1. Never accept a tip like that because you’re never going to get it,’” Emily said.

Apparently, it was restaurant policy not to accept any tips that exceed $500. Emily’s colleagues thought it was ridiculous that this tip couldn’t go through, and suggested that the payment could be made in four pieces of $500. However, the manager didn’t want to hear any of it.

The man who tipped gave the restaurant a phone call, asking what went wrong.

“He said that he left a generous tip and wanted to see if I received it but she said that they couldn’t process it,” Emily recalled. “He said ‘I don’t understand why it’s not being taken out if I have that money in my account.”

When Emily asked for the man’s phone number so she could thank him, the manager refused and told her they didn’t have the number anymore.

It was a hard blow for Emily and her family, especially during these troubling times.

“It’s been really hard to look for a job. My boyfriend was working but got laid off because of COVID,” Emily said. “For somebody to just block my blessings, it’s just like what can I do about it?”

Local news outlets got in touch with the restaurants, but they refused to comment so far. Emily and her tipper haven’t gotten in touch with each other, and she still hasn’t been able to claim her $2,000 tip. We certainly hope that she’ll still be able to give her kids a magical Christmas and that she gets what she deserves.

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Source: KENS 5: Your San Antonio News Source (YouTube), The Post