Man leaves $3,000 tip for beer hours before restaurant closes

Amid a Covid-19 surge in Cleveland, a customer tipped a local business with $3,000 and promised to return

Nighttown, in Cleveland, Ohio (Google Street View/Maps)

A bar owner in Ohio was surprised when a customer tipped $3,000 for a single beer, hours before he was due to temporarily shut-down the business due to Covid-19.

Brendan Ring, who owns the Nighttown business in Cleveland, had announced the restaurant would close on Sunday, amid an uptick in coronavirus cases across the United States.

That was when a man who was described as a “regular thirty-something”, walked in and ordered one $7 Stella Artois beer and asked for the bill, said the Nighttown owner on Facebook.

The man wished him well and when he walked away, told him to share the tip with his employees who were working at the time.

As the man walked out, Mr Ring wrote that he “realised he left a whopping $3,000” and when he ran after the man to query the bill, he said it was “no mistake we will see you when you reopen!’”

The bar owner told The Independent that Sunday “was our last day open for a while because I feel the virus is so out of control in Ohio".

“I’m voluntarily closing till it dies down a bit [because there were] 12,000 cases yesterday with a population of 11 million,” he added.

In comments made to Cleveland.com , Mr Ring said he had to adjust his eyes, to realise what the receipt showed.

“You can’t write this stuff. You hear these stories once in a while around the country about a guy leaving a big tip. I had never experienced it in all my years here,” he said to the outlet.

The customer, who said to be known to staff at Nighttown, has not been named because he would not want the attention, wrote Mr Ring.

He added that he and his employees were “humbly grateful for this incredibly kind and grand gesture”, with hundreds of people also leaving praise for the customer on Mr Ring’s Facebook post.

“Brendan—it’s gestures like this that give me hope and faith in our fellow human during the most challenging times of our lifetimes,” wrote a Facebook user. “See you when you open!”

Mr Ring told Cleveland.com that “Everyone is looking to grasp onto something that gives us hope these days, and this is a bright shining-star moment.”

The business owner said several Nighttown staff burst into tears at the thousand-dollar tip, which was split between four waiting staff who expected to file for unemployment.