Waitress fired by restaurant for $2,200 tip garners overwhelming support from strangers

Life has a funny way of surprising us when we least expect it. For Ryan Brandt, a waitress at Oven and Tap restaurant in Bentonville, Arkansas, that surprise came in December 2021. After serving a dinner party of 44 real estate executives, she received a staggering $4,400 tip. The generous gesture was organized by Grant Wise, a real estate consultant, with each member of the party contributing $100. The tip was meant to be shared between Brandt and another waitress. Unfortunately, Brandt’s joy was short-lived as the restaurant fired her for violating their policy, according to KNWA.

Wise, the owner of the real estate company Witly, ensured he could offer the hefty tip by checking the restaurant’s tipping policy beforehand. He was thrilled to brighten the waitress's day. However, the restaurant decided to distribute the $4,400 tip equally among all its servers. "I was told that I was going to be giving my cash over to my shift manager, and I would be taking home 20%," Brandt told the news channel. The waitress pointed out that this kind of tip pooling had never happened in the 3.5 years she worked there. When this information reached Wise, he was disappointed and got back the $4400 gratuity he gave them and gave the cash to Brandt outside the restaurant. 

After this incident, Brandt was fired from her job. "It was devastating, I borrowed a significant amount for student loans. Most of them were turned off because of the pandemic but they’re turning back on in January and that’s a harsh reality," she said. As per the waitress, the restaurant's reason for firing her was that she violated their policy by revealing the tip pooling to the customer. "I'm so saddened to hear that the girl we tipped the other night at our $100 Dinner Club has been fired from her job. I do not fully understand why this would happen to what she seems like such a sweet and kind-hearted woman," Wise wrote in his Instagram post. But Oven and Tap sent a statement to the news channel that Brandt and the other waitress received the tip that the customer intended to offer them. 

Despite honoring the customer's wishes to generously tip the waitresses, the restaurant chose to fire Brandt for unknown reasons. "Oven & Tap doesn’t deliver terminations lightly. Because we value our employees and highly respect their privacy, we never discuss personnel issues. The server who was terminated several days after the group dined with us was not let go because she chose to keep the tip money," the statement read. They highlighted that the other waitress who received $2200 like Brandt wasn't fired. On knowing Brandt's situation, Wise wanted to help her out. "I've started a GoFundMe page to help her raise some money to cover her expenses for the next couple of months to help her get through the holidays," he added in his post.

Within a few days, Wise's GoFundMe campaign for Brandt raised over $8700, which she received. Fortunately, she found another job the same month and received overwhelming support from strangers, according to NBC. Wise decided to use the campaign to raise money for more "$100 Dinner Clubs" he planned to host. "After discussing it with Ryan directly, she and I both agreed that we could continue to raise more funds and 'pay it forward' to the next group of restaurant staff who would get the tip," the GoFundMe update read. The campaign has raised over $18,000 which the real estate executives intended to use for tipping servers and making their day.