Springfield, Oregon bartender Aurora Kephart received an unexpected tip of $17,500 on Tuesday, via a winning lottery ticket.
One of her regulars at Conway’s Restaurant and Lounge often uses Keno tickets from the Oregon lottery as tips. The unnamed customer asked Kephart to pick two – the first one won $5, and the second won the $17,500.
Kephart, 25, said “the look on his face was incredible. I automatically handed it back to him; it was his ticket.” But the patron refused the gesture, and had Kephart sign it, so no one else could cash it.
Kephart said that roughly 80% of her customers are regulars, and were excited for her. “The reaction was crazy,” Kephart said. “Everyone was so amped up.” Still, the bar was still busy, and Kephart went back to work with a “scrambled” brain. The next day, she went to claim her winnings at the Oregon Lottery office in Salem.
Kephart said she plans to buy a sofa with what’s left of her tip – she gave a percentage to the customer who’d given her the ticket. She plans to save the rest. “I never realized how expensive couches were,” Kephart said. “Instead of waiting till Christmas or later, now I can buy something I really need.”
On the flip side of this sort of heart-warming service industry tale, a Japanese teen recently racked up a $54,000 bar tab – which he’d ended up not having to pay. Then 16-year-old went out with his dad’s credit card, and bought a bunch of $3700 bottles of champagne for his friends. After spending time in a strip club, the total for the evening was over $50K. Though, the kid’s father was responsible for only $783.00 of the debt, as the clubs never carded the boy.
Image via The Register-Guard.