"Business Decision": Eatery Fires Staff Who Got $10,000 Tip On $32.43 Bill

The US waitress who received an incredible $10,000 tip on a customer's $32.43 bill on February 5, was fired a few days later, however, the restaurant has now stated that her firing was unrelated to the hefty tip and was "purely a business decision", as per a report in the New York Post.

The Mason Jar Cafe in Benton Harbor, located in southern Michigan fired Linsey Boyd a week after she received the tip. As per the outlet, a customer named Mark left it "in memory of a friend who had recently passed and he was in town for the funeral." The money was split nine ways among the coworkers, who each took home a little over $1,100 each.

Ms Boyd claimed trouble had started to emerge inside the restaurant days after receiving the substantial tip and that management had ordered her to take that Sunday off as a mental health day. She went on to say that management had contacted her late on Sunday and instructed her to take Monday off as well. She then sent a message to the restaurant on Monday to ask if she was being asked "in a professional way to not come back." "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," her now-deleted Facebook post said.

However, Mason Jar Cafe refuted these claims and said it was a "nothing to do with the tip". The restaurant took to Facebook and issued a clarification, "I will say it had nothing to do with the tip. She did receive the entire tip, she did not pay taxes on it (the business did). Yes, she shared the tip at the request of the man that left it," husband and wife owners Able Martinez and Jayme Cousins said.

"We do truly care about our staff. 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. We hope it is clear this was not a decision made lightly or hastily," they added.

Meanwhile, Linsey Boyd is now spending time with family following the rough week.