A story that went viral last week on social media about an extravagant tip at a west Michigan restaurant from an out of town diner has taken a turn, with a server losing her job and conflicting accounts over what happened.
In the original account, a middle-age man in a dark suit stopped at the Mason Jar Cafe in Benton Harbor on Feb. 5 for lunch after attending a funeral. He ordered, paid his $32.43 bill with an American Express card and left behind a $10,000 tip with hopes of spreading some cheer.
The gratuity was intended to be divided among the wait staff and honor the memory of the man’s dear, departed friend. Tim Sweeney, general manager at Mason Jar Cafe, said the man wished not to be identified.
Later, the cafe posted a photo of the receipt with the handwritten tip and the man’s last name blacked out online. In response, a slew of news outlets, including the Free Press, wrote about the heartwarming story.
‘Drama ensued’
A week later, however, the news story turned sour, when the employee who received the tip and shared it at the man’s request was let go and posted about it on social media, leading to a firestorm with several customers vowing to never eat at Mason Jar Cafe again — and others wondering whether the story was real to begin with.
The employee said in a now-deleted Facebook post that “drama ensued” after the $10,000 tip was shared, “and in an attempt to diffuse the situation and resolve any rumors, things became even worse.” She said she was asked to take a mental health day off last Sunday, then was told Sunday night to take Monday off as well.
On Monday, she said she texted management, asking whether she was being told “in a professional way to not come back” to work, then on Tuesday got a call “that I am fired.”
“One week I’m such an amazing, hardworking employee, awesome mother … couldn’t have happened to a better person. Now, I’m without a job, for the first time since I was 15-years-old,” the employee’s post said.
By Thursday, the cafe owners — husband and wife Able Martinez and Jayme Cousins — were trying to set the record straight online, at least in their eyes, about what they called “a claim” made about an employee’s dismissal.
The decision was, they said on Facebook, unrelated to the tip. They said the restaurant paid the taxes on the tip and the termination was “not a decision made lightly or hastily.”
“We do truly care about our staff,” the post said. “We’ve had the same crew for 5-6 years. We have college girls that come home every summer and have been for four years now, we take our staff up north at the end of every summer season, we give donations for college funds for them, we kept them employed through Covid, we do everything in our power not to lose staff.”
‘It’s supposed to be a good story’
Since then, however, hundreds of people have commented on the owners’ post, some supporting the restaurant, some condemning it. Some have even gone so far to call for a boycott, and a few are questioning the entire narrative about the tip. One person wrote: “Your story just doesn’t add up.”
Sweeney, however, told the Free Press that the tip was real and the termination was bad timing, coming after months of conversation and policy violations. He said the cafe does not regret posting the now-deleted photo of the receipt.
There was, Sweeney acknowledged, a lot of attention on the restaurant after the post, and, now, a lot of people who are upset. But the goal behind it was to show “if you’ve been blessed as a person, we have to look out for the rest of mankind.”
Business at the restaurant has been great, he said.
“It’s supposed to be a good story,” he explained. “That’s what it should have been.”
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or [email protected].
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