A club, aptly named "The Breakfast Club," has the main goal of awarding thousand-dollar tips to random waiters in Massachusetts.
One waiter who received this amazing honor was Roberto Rivas, who is a full-time Spanish teacher and to earn extra money, he also waits tables at IHOP on the weekends. The club came in and brought Rivas to tears when they gave him an incredibly generous tip of $1,600.
From The Washinton Post:
Rivas had just finished serving pancakes and eggs to a party of 16 on a busy Saturday morning in Norwood, Mass., when one of the customers at the table called him over.
“We have something for you,” the customer, Richard Brooks, told Rivas. “The only reason we came to breakfast today was to give you this tip.”
Brooks pulled out a pile of $100 bills and counted them into Rivas’s hand, explaining that he and his friends were members of the $1,000 Breakfast Club. Each person had contributed $100 to leave for the server, $1,600 in all.
Rivas, 29, said he almost burst into tears that Saturday morning in June.
He said since his family immigrated to the United States from Venezuela in December 2022, he’d been saving money to buy his mother new hearing aids, and the tip now allows him to buy them. He and four family members have humanitarian parole so they can work in the United States until December 2024, he said. He hopes to get an employment or student visa so he can stay longer.
“This is a golden opportunity — I want to be able to contribute to society in the U.S.,” Rivas said.
He said he was shocked to receive such a large tip from the $1,000 Breakfast Club.
After a six-hour shift, he said he is usually lucky to take home about $200 in tips.
“Sixteen hundred dollars is unheard of,” Rivas said. “Servers work hard, but a tip this large is rare. I’m still amazed they wanted to surprise me like this.”
Brooks started the $1,000 Breakfast Club earlier this year after his brother, Justin Brooks, mentioned he’d gone to breakfast in California with a group that left a stack of $100 bills for their server.
“For years, I’ve given out single $100 bills to people at random in appreciation for a job well done, or just to brighten their day,” said Richard Brooks, 63, a lawyer who works in Boston. “More than anything, I’ve enjoyed watching the look on their faces as I hand them the money.”
When his brother told him about his own $100 bill outing, “It just hit me that this was a great idea and I should do something with it,” Brooks said.
