NH Restaurant Patron Leaves One Heck of a Tip

For a couple of chili cheese dogs, some pickle chips, and a few drinks, $37 is a pretty reasonable tab. Now add $16,000. The bartenders at Stumble Inn Bar & Grill in Londonderry, New Hampshire, were pretty excited about that. Until they spotted the five-figure tip, the most noteworthy thing about an unnamed man sitting alone at the outdoor bar was that when he saw another customer’s order for fried pickles go by he said, "Hey, I want some of those," NBC Boston reports. The restaurant’s owner, Mike Zarella, figured it was a typo. It wasn’t a typo, and it wasn’t a joke.

Zarella cautioned his staff not to get too excited in case the funds never appeared, Fox News reports. But the money was disbursed, and the eight bartenders split it and shared with the cooks, too. The diner left the tip on June 12 and Zarella celebrated with a Facebook post on Monday. The bonus was a welcome boost for the staff. The restaurant had been shut down for months for the pandemic. “It’s just been a really rough year for all of us. For someone to do something like that really restored my faith in humanity,” bartender Michelle McCudden said. (More tip stories.)