Michigan server Linsey Boyd was fired after receiving a $10,000 tip, but Mason Jar Cafe says it's a 'business decision'

US News

by Nicholas McIntyre

Wage wars.

A Michigan waitress who received a massive $10,000 tip was fired from her job days later — but the restaurant claimed the firing had nothing to do with the generous bonus and was a “purely business decision.”

The Mason Jar Cafe in Benton Harbor, located in southern Michigan, prepared canned server Lynsey Boyd a week after an anonymous customer left the big blessing on a $32.43 bill. According to the Detroit Free Press.

The man, who wished to remain anonymous, left the now-viral tip to honor a friend whose funeral was in town and asked Boyd to split the gift among the entire wait staff, which came out to just over $1,100 for each employee.

“I will say it had nothing to do with the tip. She received the entire tip, and didn't pay taxes on it (as the company did). “Yes, I did share the tip at the request of the guy who left it,” said husband-and-wife owners Apple Martinez and Jaime Cousins. he wrote on Facebook.

Days after receiving the large sum, Boyd claimed drama began unfolding inside the restaurant and management asked her to take Sunday off for mental health leave, the outlet added, citing a now-deleted Facebook post.

Boyd then said management contacted her Sunday night and asked her to take the next day off as well.

The waitress messaged the restaurant on Monday to ask if she had been told “in a professional manner not to return.”

She was fired via phone call on Tuesday.

“One week I was an amazing, hard-working employee and a wonderful mother…it couldn't have happened to someone better than me,” Boyd's post reportedly said. “Now, I am out of work, for the first time since I was 15.”

Restaurant management has since refuted Boyd's claims, claiming the firing had nothing to do with the tip or the aftermath, but they also couldn't go into detail due to labor laws.

“We really care about our employees,” the couple added. “We've had the same crew for 5-6 years. We've had college girls come home every summer for four years, and we take our staff up north at the end of every summer season, give them donations to college funds, keep them working through COVID, and do everything we can Not losing employees.

“I know there's a lot of things that made us let her go because of the tip, and it doesn't make sense,” Cousins ​​said. WOOD-TV said. “(We) have employees who have been with us for years and college students who come back every summer and we give opportunity after opportunity to our employees, so obviously we're not going to let anyone go for no reason at all.”

Cousins ​​added that they did not come to the decision lightly and that firing the employee is something the restaurant is trying to avoid.

“In this case, it was purely a business decision.”

The fired employee has since left town this morning to spend some time with family and get away after a tough week. According to WNDU.