The restaurant bill was 23 dollars (about £17), but the tip at a small-town US restaurant was much larger – 2,020 dollars (£1,525).
“Things like this don’t happen to people like me,” waitress Danielle Franzoni told the Alpena News.
The 31-year-old got the tip while working at Thunder Bay River Restaurant in Alpena, Michigan. The credit card receipt said: “Happy New Year. 2020 Tip Challenge.”
Danielle Franzoni (Julie Riddle/The News via AP)
Ms Franzoni, a single mother, could not believe the number, but her manager assured her the tip was legitimate.
She said she was living in a homeless shelter a year ago, and now plans to use the money to reinstate her driving licence and build savings.
“They don’t know nothing about my story. They don’t know where I’ve come from. They don’t know how hard it’s been,” she said of the couple who left the tip. “They’re really just doing this out of the kindness of their heart.”
She later went to another restaurant and left a 20.20-dollar tip, saying: “That was my pay-it-forward.”
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