'Tips for Jesus' Strikes Again With Massive $7K In Philly
The person or group of people behind the nationwide "Tips for Jesus" phenomenon has recently struck again, this time in Philadelphia's posh Rittenhouse Square area, leaving $7,000 total to a waitress and a bartender.
Jess Nguyen, a waitress at Rouge, a restaurant located in Rittenhouse Square, says she served dinner to two men, likely in their 30s, last Thursday night, with one ordering one of the restaurant's burger options and the other diner ordering a cheese plate. When the men paid with their Amex Black Card, Nguyen noticed a hefty $5,000 tip written on the $258 tab. Next to the tip amount was the note "God Bless!" from the diners, who had asked Nguyen during their meal if she had ever heard of Tips for Jesus.
"When he wrote down the tip, to be honest with you, it didn't feel real," the waitress told Philly.com.
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"I feel like I won the lottery," she added.
The two diners also awarded a $2,000 tip to the restaurant's bartender, Sam Trasatti, who tells the local ABC 6 station that the men discussed Tips for Jesus as they ran up a $150 bar tab. "They said they travel the country and do this in the name of Jesus, that this is something they do and they are just spreading goodwill and we are so lucky they came to Rouge."
Trasatti will reportedly use the money to help build her personal training business that she just began, and Nguyen will use her hefty tip to continue her education to become a teacher.
This is the most recent of several media reports documenting the trans-national journey of those behind Tips for Jesus, a man, or occasionally group of men, who travel throughout the country and leave generous tips for servers and bartenders. Tips for Jesus sightings have been reported in Indiana, San Francisco, Hollywood, Chicago and Utah, among other places.
Back in January, a mystery customer at the high-end sushi restaurant Roka Akor reportedly left the generous tip of $3,000 after racking up a $147 tab. Additionally, the diner paid for the tab of the couple dining next to him.
"I peripherally opened up the credit card holder, looked down at it and my jaw just dropped," Hilary Hesse, the waitress at the sushi restaurant who received the generous tip, told the local KPIX 5 in January.
Although the identity of the person behind Tips for Jesus remains unknown, some media blogs have suggested that the California-based entrepreneur Jack Selby, former vice president of PayPal, is behind the generous trend, although Selby has never confirmed the claims himself.
