Bartender gets $10,000 tip on $26 tab

[Petra]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 4:47am

HUTCHINSON, Kan. - Two weeks ago, one of Cindy Kienow's regular customers left her a $100 tip on a tab that wasn't even half that. This week, he added a couple of zeros.


Kienow, a bartender at Applebee's, got a $10,000 tip from the man — for a $26 meal — on Sunday.

"I couldn't move," Kienow said. "I didn't know what to say. He said, `This will buy you something kind of nice, huh?' And I said, `Yeah, it will.'"

Kienow said the man, whom company officials have declined to name, comes in several times a month and eats at the end of the bar. He has always tipped well, she said, usually leaving $15 on a $30 tab.

Then came the $100 tip, followed by the real shocker.

"He usually signs his ticket and flips it upside down," said Kienow, 35, who has worked at the restaurant for eight years. "But this time, he had it right-side up and said `I want you to know this is not a joke.'"

It's not, company officials agreed.

"This is a great deal for us and a great deal for Cindy," said Rhodri McNee, vice president of operations for JS Enterprises, the owner of the Hutchinson Applebee's. "We did have a guest leave this tip on a credit card, and we're doing everything to make sure it's a valid charge."

The company is in the final stages of verifying the tip, McNee said, while also working to maintain the customer's privacy and make sure the money goes through the proper channels to get to Kienow.

"Nothing would make us happier than to present her with that check," McNee said. "She's been with us for eight years, and she's a great employee who does a great job."

Kienow said that while she always talks with the man when he comes in — usually about current events or the weather — she can't think of anything that would have prompted the huge tip.

"I've been waiting on him for about three years," Kienow said. "We'd just talk across the bar he's a really nice guy. I hope he comes back in so I can tell him thank you, because the other day I was kind of dumbfounded."

Kienow, whose father will have to take some time off work for surgery on both of his knees, said she hasn't decided what to do with the money.

"I'd like to take care of my parents, since they always took care of me," she said. "But I feel like he wanted me to buy something for myself, and there's a Jeep that I've had my eye on for a while."

[gavrochegirl]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 5:10am

That's pretty remarkable. Something you don't see everyday, eh?

[StageManager2]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 5:14am

"I'd like to take care of my parents, since they always took care of me," she said. "But I feel like he wanted me to buy something for myself, and there's a Jeep that I've had my eyes on for a while."

She knows where her priorities stand!

As for me, I wish someone would throw $10,000 at me. I'd even put out, and then some...

Updated On: 9/1/06 at 05:14 AM

[jasonf]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 12:52pm

That's pretty incredible. As a teacher I'm amazed when I get a 25 dollar gift from the kids -- a 10,000 dollar tip is just incredible.

[GoodbyeMyLover]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 1:14pm

wow.

[mominator]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 1:42pm

Always nice to hear about a happy story.

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 1:58pm

Wow. What a guy!

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 2:00pm

Am I the only one who finds something a bit fishy...that may not yet be uncovered.

The guy who gave the tip can be super nice and super rich but...there has to be something behind it.
At least I think so.

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 2:01pm

Maybe he just wanted to do something nice.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 2:03pm

There are plenty of people who have more than enough money to give away $10,000 as casually as I might give away $10.

And, as someone who eats at the same restaurant all the time and who knows and likes his servers and bartenders very much, if I had the money I'd do this for them without question.

[jasonf]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 2:08pm

Yeah - but it IS an Applebees. I mean...do rich people often eat at Applebees? I prefer to think this is exactly what it appears to be, but the damn media has managed to always put that little bug in the back of my brain saying "something's not quite right..."

[JailyardGuy]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 2:20pm

Not every person who has acquired a great deal of money is a blue-blooder. I have met a very great number of extremely wealthy people in my life and throughout my career, and a great deal of them would be more than happy to chow down on an Awesome Blossom (is that an Applebee's thing, or a Chili's thing? I can never remember).

In fact, one of the wealthiest men I have ever dated LOVED to go to the Olive Garden...and he got a HUGE kick out of tipping exhorbitantly well for good service.

Diff'rent strokes...

Updated On: 9/1/06 at 02:20 PM

[Calvin]

Posted: 9/1/06 at 2:23pm

Maybe this was a Jack Nicholson/Helen Hunt situation.

Or that crazy West Virginia guy who won the lotto.