"Tips For Jesus" Insta Is Latest Internet Mystery

The hyper-generous mystery crew “Tips for Jesus” is making headlines again, this time for a customer who tipped 3,000 dollars on a 505 dollar tab at a bar in Salt Lake City last Thursday. The unidentified University of Michigan fan was at Bourbon House to watch Michigan play University of Utah. Despite Michigan’s 24-17 loss to Utah, the customer surprised he server, Breanne Snow, with a shockingly large 3,000 dollar tip. (That’s a 594 percent gratuity, for those of you trying to figure out just how shabby this guy is making your standard 20 percent look). She told The Salt Lake City Tribune of her reaction to the unexpected gift, saying, “I went and cried in the corner for a couple minutes.” The server, who works two jobs in order to pay off debt, said,

We're working so hard and never see the payout from it. It came as such a relief. He could have picked anyone else in there, and for him to pick me, it meant a lot because we were working so hard.

The mystery customer is part of the group that makes up the Tips For Jesus Instagram account, which has given over 130 thousand dollars to restaurant servers in the last few years. According to a 2014 interview with the person behind the group (given under conditions of strict anonymity) in San Francisco Magazine, Tips For Jesus includes about ten people and is based on a concept of “direct giving to ordinary people.” Despite the reference to Jesus in its name, the interviewee emphasized that Tips For Jesus is not a religious organization, saying, “The movement we have started is intended to be agnostic.” Although the identities of the people involved in Tips For Jesus are still unconfirmed, in 2013, Valleywag alleged that Jack Selby, a former Vice President of PayPal, was behind the group.

Breanne Snow’s 3,000 dollar tip is nothing to sneeze at, but it is far from the biggest tip that Tips For Jesus has left. Shortly after last Christmas, one of the group’s members left a staggering 11,000 dollars for workers at a restaurant in Arizona, on a bill for just over 421 dollars.

Images from the Tips For Jesus Instagram account show that other restaurant workers have received different amounts, ranging from one hundred to ten thousand dollars, but they all have one thing in common: The huge smiles on their faces.

To see more, check out Tips For Jesus on Instagram.

Images: Pexels; tipsforjesus/Instagram (7)