Texas waitress Emily Bauer takes home $2000 tip after claiming she was stiffed

A waitress who claimed she a mystery diner’s $2000 tip wasn’t passed on to her has been left in shock after her boss made a new decision on the money.

A Texas waitress who claimed her employer refused to pass on a mystery diner’s $US2000 ($A2700) tip will take home the money after all.

Emily Bauer, 21, will be given the money by the owner of Red Hook Seafood and Bar in San Antonio after the restaurant claimed the diner’s credit card transaction didn’t go through, news station KENS reported.

“It’s Christmas time, and everybody is struggling,” owner John Cheng told the outlet Wednesday. “I’m ready to give it to her as a Christmas gift.”

Cheng reportedly wrote Bauer a cheque for $2069.01, which is the tip amount plus the cost of the customer’s bill.

“The fact that the owner of my job is willing to give it to me, even though it wasn’t his mess-up, I can’t thank him enough for that,” she told the news station.

Ms Bauer was left the once-in-a-lifetime tip after she kept apologising to a customer over the weekend for the service “being slow”.

RELATED: Why Texas restaurant won’t let waitress have $2000 tip

Texas waitress Emily Bauer received $2000 from a customer’s tip after initially being told she couldn’t keep it. Picture: KEN5.

“He was like, ‘It’s OK, I’ve owned restaurants and I understand how it is to be a server.’ I was like, ‘Thank you for understanding,’” Ms Bauer told The Post on Wednesday.

Ms Bauer said she didn’t realise until he left that he gave her a $US2000 ($A2700) tip on top of a $US69.01 ($A92.70) bill along with a note that said, “Merry Christmas! Keep working hard!”

But she claimed her excitement quickly turned to disappointment when a manager told her they were unable to process tips larger than $US500 ($A670).

On Wednesday, the restaurant didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But the eatery now insists the ordeal was a misunderstanding and they couldn’t pay out the tip because the transaction didn’t go through.

“It’s like the bank telling you like, ‘Oh, it’s fraud. We’re not going to do it,’” the general manager, who declined to be identified, told KENS.

The mystery diner left the tip and a Merry Christmas message for the waitress.

“If I put a $2000 tip on mine? My bank is going to deny it. They’re going to deny it. They’re going to deny it because I do not normally do that; I do not normally tip that way.”

The general manager said the customer later called to see if Ms Bauer received her tip, but the manager didn’t get the chance to take his contact information.

“I told him to come back to the store because we were unable to process the payment. He said, ‘OK’ and immediately hung up before I could say anything,” the manager said, adding that his number was private.

While the generous tipper never showed up, the owner said he wanted to make the situation right.

Ms Bauer previously told The Post she plans to spend the money on Christmas presents for her two sons aged two and five months.

“I would just spend it on them. We had such a rough year,” said Bauer, whose boyfriend got laid off earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was praying for something like that happening,” she said.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and has been republished with permission