Employees at Hartbeespoort Dam’s Pecanwood Boat Club restaurant are each R6 000 richer after an anonymous customer’s generous tip.
Last week, an anonymous customer who is a resident of Pecanwood and a regular customer, left the whopping R85 000 tip to be split among the employees.
General manager of the Pecanwood Estate Homeowners Association Morne Botha said the customer was a humble and caring individual who wanted to support the industry in the trying times of Covid-19.
Botha said the generous gesture had left him speechless for a while as people did not always understand how hard it was to manage other people, especially if you knew their livelihoods were in your hands.
“Covid-19 was soul-destroying in this environment, with so many lives lost, so many jobs made redundant and so many people who had to close down their businesses. This gesture from the resident was the real hope that we are praying for each day, the light at the end of the tunnel. I am so grateful that we have customers and residents like this, who put others' needs first. The resident gave us all hope for the future,” Botha said.
“It is very tough. We are fortunate to have full-time residents on the estate who supported us during hard lockdown with our takeaway services – something new we had to introduce to try to survive. The business itself is not where we want to be yet, as we are still restricted in terms of capacity, liquor sales, and curfew times. We have had many generous tips left for staff in the past but, to my knowledge, not as big as this one.”
With the food and beverage industry being one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, restaurant workers noticed something unusual when restaurants reopened – bigger tips.
Customers going above and beyond when tipping, sometimes giving tips that rocket past 20%, and into 200% territory and beyond, has become a new trend.
Botha said: “Hopefully it is a trend of hope and sharing with the ones in need. Giving hope to others is a massive gift”.
If you think you're a good tipper, just wait until you see these big tips from generous people.