Waiter Gets $5,000 Tip on $27 Bill

Customers' money will go toward a new car

What's better than a 20 percent tip? How about nearly 20,000?

A Houston waiter, who lost his car in a severe storm several weeks ago, received a $5,000 tip from a couple over the weekend.

The customers, regulars at D’Amico’s Italian Market Café in Rice Village, gave the wad of cash to Greg Rubar Saturday. They told him to buy himself a new car, KHOU-TV reported.

“I told them thank you when they gave it to me, I knew it was money, but I didn’t know how much,” he told the TV station. “Maybe like a half hour after they left I went in the bathroom and I opened it, and looked at it and I could tell it was $5,000 because it was still wrapped, it still had the band on it from the bank.”

Rubar has worked at D’Amico for 16 years. In that time has received a number of large tips but nothing as generous as 18,518 percent.

"What this tells me is that there are people out there willing to help people," he told the Houston Chronicle.

Rubar said he plans to use the money to buy a car as his customers intended. The couple that tipped him wished to remain anonymous.

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