Customer celebrating his birthday leaves $1K tip, tells waiter to ‘pay it forward’

Last week, server Michael Shafts received his biggest tip yet: $1,000.

Shafts was working his regular Wednesday night shift at The Ginger Man, in Albany, New York, on July 15, when one of his patrons left him the huge gratuity on a $113.89 bill.
The man who left the tip had been celebrating his 47th birthday with his wife at the wine bar and restaurant.
"He brought a very good 47-year-old bottle of wine with him, and I handled it well, but I always try to give excellent service and to be a little different. I look young, so maybe people don't expect it, but I always try to give the best service to all of my customers," Shafts said of his service that evening.
While he knew he gave his best effort that evening, he certainly wasn't expecting a 878 per cent tip.
"Pay it forward. My birthday present to me!" read a note on the receipt above where the patron filled in a $1,000 tip.
"I shook his hand, I hugged him twice, and I said it was too much, twice," Shafts told the Times Union. "He insisted, twice, that he wanted to do it, that it was legitimate."
"I did a double-take," The Ginger Man manager Julie Byron told ABC News. "Everybody was very excited. It’s thrilling and it's especially unusual for something like that to happen in the capitol district."
Shafts told the Times Union that he had trouble concentrating for the rest of his shift.
"It was surreal. I was shaking. I couldn't feel my legs," he said.


"I saw him waiting on other tables — it was like, 7 pm." Byron told All Over Albany. "And I said, 'Michael, I can't believe you're not walking out the door.' And he was like, 'Julie, I would never do that to you!' He played it cool and continued to give great service to the rest of his tables. Then he went home and was texting me at 11 pm saying, 'I can't believe it!'"


Because the diner wanted Shafts to "pay it forward," he did just that.
"When he returned to work on Saturday night, he had envelopes of money for all of the staff, both front-of-house and back-of-house that had been working with him on Wednesday night," Byron said. "When all was said and done, he divvied up more than half."
Byron said the tip was a well-deserved one.
"He's a very hardworking young man," she told ABC News, explaining that he works full-time at a credit union, works three shifts a week at The Ginger Man, and has a side iPhone-repair business, too.
"I always tell him that he’s my favourite. He’s honestly a great guy and it couldn’t have happened to a better person," she said.


Shafts told the Times Union that, after sharing the tip with his coworkers, he spent what was left on much-needed car repairs.
In February, a Tennessee waitress who was struggling to pay her bills received a $1,075 tip from a couple who felt "led" to give her the money.
In Nebraska this January, a patron wrote a waitress three cheques to help her return to college: $5,000 to cover her tuition, $1,000 to cover personal expenses, and $100 to spilt with another server.
And last summer, a Canadian lottery winner tipped a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan restaurant owner $10,000 to help him visit his cancer-stricken daughter.


The world still has a lot of good Samaritans in it. We should take a leaf from their notebook and 'pay it forward'.