Customer Left $2,000 Tip At Restaurant On A $93 Bill

A customer left a $2,000 tip at Blue 44, a restaurant in upper Northwest Washington, D.C. The tip is making news because the bill was for only $93. The customer ordered his favorite gumbo and his favorite beer, Old Chub Scottish Ale. He ordered fried chicken for his friend. The Washington Post reported that the big tip wasn’t discovered until much later.

The customer is a regular and is usually a generous tipper, but on this day, he was extremely generous. Christofer Nardelli, owner of the 4-year-old restaurant, said the customer and his friend had been there all afternoon.

When the bartender, Laura Dally, was cleaning up around 10 p.m., she discovered the receipt with the $2,000 tip. The amount of the tip was unusual, but there was something else unusual about the receipt. Details were written on the receipt about how to divide the tip. Chef James Turner was to be given $1,000, bartender Laura Dally was to be given $500, and restaurant owner Christofer Nardelli was to receive $500. A note on the receipt also said, “Thank you for the Gumbo!”

WTOP noted that the tip was 21 times more than the bill itself. The customer who left the big tip lives in the area and eats at the restaurant a few times a month. He is partial to the restaurant’s gumbo so much that the chef asked him on a previous visit when he would be back so he could make the gumbo he liked. The customer said he would be in Monday.

To protect the privacy of the customer, his identity had not been revealed. Nardelli said he was shocked about the whole thing.

“This is the kind of stuff you see in the restaurant business that happens to some guy in the Midwest or the West Coast. You think, who are these people who give these extraordinarily generous tips that just made a server or bartender’s day? And then sure enough, it happened to us.”

The next day, Nardelli said he sent a “thank you” e-mail to the customer. In the e-mail exchange, the unidentified man explained why he left a big tip on such a low bill. He said he was very happy with the restaurant and that he was proud to be a customer, and leaving the generous tip was his way of expressing gratitude.

Nardelli plans to use his portion of the money to help offset his toddler’s monthly daycare bill. Turner will probably spend his money on his family, as well. Dally, a 29-year-old Silver Spring resident, said she plans to use her $500 to pay for a summer class at Montgomery College. She is planning to become an occupational therapist. She said in 10 years of working as a hostess, server, and bartender, she has never gotten a tip that big before.

[Image Courtesy of Christofer Nardelli]