A hospital worker and his wife were left in tears after staff at Pizza Express picked up their bill on a "well earned date" night.
Geoff Munns, 65, had taken his wife, Carol, 61, out dinner and a movie after he spent much of the festive period working.
Mr Munns, a chef at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside, had fed thousands of patients when he worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve.
After all the hard work, the Liverpool Echo reports that Mr and Mrs Munns said they had visited the restaurant for a "well earned date" following one of his shifts.
The couple ordered three courses and a bottle of wine, Mr Munns said, and struck up conversation with their server about working in the food industry.
But after hearing Mr Munns' story, the Pizza Express branch said it wanted to treat the couple and paid their entire three-course-bill.
Mr Munns, from Bebington , said: "In all my years I've never had anything done like that before.
"The timing of it was absolutely perfect."
The Pizza Express worker had told the couple it was expected the staff were going to have a busy night because there was large parties of people booked in for end of year celebrations.
Mr Munns said: "I said 'I know what that's like' and told them I was working Christmas Day and Boxing Day and I said I know what it's like to make a lot of meals.
"I said I'd made about 500 breakfasts on Christmas Day. We were just making chit chat with each other."
The couple then received their bill, which read: "Since you spent your Christmas feeding others at the hospital, tonight we want to treat you."
Mr Munns said: "I thought they were talking about the coffee or dessert, or there was an offer on, but they said 'no all of the bill'.
"I could not believe it, it was really, really good of them.
"Carol had a couple of tears coming out, but it was happy tears to think that someone could actually be that generous.
"I would like to say thank you to them and say how happy we were."
Replying to a tweet about the lovely gesture, Pizza Express said: "Aww, that's brilliant to hear and well deserved.
"We hope he has a nice rest now."
