‘You Guys Work Hard’: Customer Leaves $16K Tip At N.H. Eatery

LONDONDERRY, NH — What started as a seemingly ordinary visit to the Stumble Inn Bar and Grill ended with an extraordinary gesture from an anonymous stranger.

The stranger recently visited the Londonderry eatery, where he ordered two chili dogs, fried pickle chips and some drinks. His bill was $37.93 with tax.

The $16,000 tip he left was much more.

Restaurant workers are among those who’ve been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. By the end of 2020, nearly 2.5 million restaurant jobs had been lost due to COVID-19.

Restaurants haven’t fared well either. Between March 2020 and April 2021, U.S. restaurant sales were down about $290 billion from expected levels, according to the National Restaurant Association. About 90,000 restaurants had temporarily or permanently closed by May 2021.

Stumble Inn was among those affected by the pandemic and closed for a few months, Manchester-based WMUR reported. It was a challenge for staff to stay afloat.

Still, Stumble Inn staff couldn’t believe it.

“It was on the credit card statement, they put it down next to the register and he said three times, ‘Don’t spend it all in one place,’” Stumble Inn owner Mike Zarella told WMUR. “That’s what made her flip it over and look, and she’s like, ‘Oh my god, are you serious?’ And he said, ‘I want you to have it, you guys work hard.’”

The generous tipper asked to remain anonymous, Zarella told the news station. The bartenders who received the tip also plan to share it with back-of-the-house staff.

“He just said that they deserve it, they work very hard,” Zarella said.

This isn’t the first time during the pandemic a kind stranger has paid it forward to hard-hit restaurant workers.

A generous tipper in Colorado, who wanted to be known as the "COVID Bandit," left a $1,400 tip on a $20 bill at Notchtop Café in Estes Park. He told his waitress it was to be split evenly among the seven employees working at the café at the time.

Meanwhile, an anonymous patron at the Castaway Waterfront Restaurant and Sushi Bar in Marathon, Florida, left a big surprise for her waitress in March — a $10,000 tip.

Also, a diner at the Souk Mediterranean Kitchen in Toledo, Ohio, left the staff a $5,600 tip that was split among its 28 employees. It was an early Christmas gift for the staffers, who had been struggling to get by after the coronavirus pandemic caused business to drop, CNN reported.