A group of generous customers surprised a waitress at a Syracuse diner with a $1,400 tip on Saturday.
“I was just so stunned. Nothing like that has ever happened to me like that before,” said waitress Kelly Beeching, who has worked at The Market Diner for eight years, per WSYR. “I was stressing out about Christmas. I appreciate it, it’s so nice.”
The tip was part of a trend called “Shock and Claus,” where each patron in a group brings $100 cash to tip their server at the end of a meal. Bud Loura organized the effort behind the enormous tip at The Market Diner.
Beeching immediately paid it forward. She split the tip amongst her four fellow waitresses who worked on Saturday, so each server walked out with $280, according to WSYR.
“Do a little bit for someone else because that was just so nice. I can’t thank them enough, just to be a good person is so nice,” Beeching said.
She even had plans to take care of one of her coworkers in the kitchen.
“I was going to give a girl in the kitchen some,” Beeching told WSYR. “She seems like she could use it. I probably will take $100 of it and give the rest to her.”
Loura told WSYR that he organized the effort to show appreciation to restaurant workers:
I work with a lot of independent restaurants. I see the strife they’re going through. I see the hurt that’s going through their employees right now and it’s just really important. They’re the hardest working people right now. I think the people that came and gave the 100 dollars are just as happy as the people that got the money.
The “Shock and Claus” movement inspired Loura to start his own trend called Breakfast Club Syracuse.
“Bud Loura and Anthony Tringale (Eat Local New York) are now making this a monthly event where they’ll get as many people together for breakfast (sometimes lunch or dinner) as they can to make a difference in the lives of local servers around Central New York,” states Breakfast Club Syracuse’s website.
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