A student waitress was left in tears after receiving a staggering $10,000 (£5,677) tip from a mystery diner. Lauren, who lives in Melbourne, Australia was stunned when a generous customer added the huge tip to his $500 (£285) food bill at the restaurant where she works.
The university student said she is 'extremely grateful' for the man's gratuity as she explained that the staff at the Gilson restaurant in South Yarra, Melbourne usually share their tips out between their 23 staff. However, the diner said he would only leave the tip if Lauren personally got 70% of it, the Mirror reports.
The diner, who is believed to be a young billionaire businessman who works in cryptocurrency, told the waitress to keep the $7000 (£3,974) for herself and share the remaining $3000 (£1,703) out amongst her co-workers. Lauren was left gobsmacked by the diner's handout and asked him to say the number out loud as she couldn't believe what she was reading.
The man, who is thought to own more than $120 million (£62m) worth of property in Toorak, visited Gilson, which is a trendy Italian restaurant that attracts in a lot of social media influencers and reality TV stars. Lauren told 7NEWS: : "I am just extremely grateful, to know that they thought that much of my service is amazing."
After it happened Lauren ran straight over to her colleague Charlotte Crow, who said: "She came up to me crying, she was like 'is this real? Was it a mistake, what do I do?'".
Since then Lauren keeps replaying what happened in her mind and says it still feels 'surreal and amazing'. Her colleagues agree that she's deserving of the tip and should spend the free cash on a holiday.
Meanwhile cafe owner Jamie McBride is said to be thrilled that his hard-working employee is getting some well earned extra recognition. He said the staff were 'overwhelmingly proud of Lauren' and that they were 'taken aback by the generosity of the table in question'.
Lauren who 'burst into tears' after the encounter has never been overseas before and said that the large tip was going to 'help a lot' towards her holiday.
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