Server at House of Juju in Clovis gets $585.50 tip
A customer at the House of Juju restaurant in Clovis enjoyed his lunch so much Thursday that he left a big tip — as in, $585.50 big.
The server decided to share the tip with all the workers at the restaurant.
At first, the tip left the server, Justin Glenn — who manages the restaurant and is the son of owner Julie and Scott Glenn — stunned.
“I just didn’t think it was real,” he said. “I looked down thinking it was 58 cents, and then it was, ‘OK, maybe it’s 58 dollars and ... no, $600 was the total.”
It was real. The payment went through and a customer at a nearby table said they overheard the diner talking about leaving a big tip.
Julie Glenn said about her son: “He kinda got weak in the knees, and he just got really overwhelmed at the reality that somebody would do that.”
The unidentified diner’s bill totaled $14.50 for a Betsy Ross burger and a soda. He was one of a group of nine young diners at one table who all requested separate checks.
“Nobody was over 25 years old. That was the crazy thing,” Justin Glenn said. “For whatever reason they just decided to really give a huge blessing.”
Glenn thinks he knows the diner by sight, but they don’t know his name because the debit card receipt only shows an unreadable signature.
He is so overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude.
Julie Glenn about her son who received an $585.50 tip.
The restaurant always tries to accommodate diners’ special requests such as separate checks, said Julie Glenn from Morro Bay, where the family has opened a second restaurant.
The Clovis location opened in December 2013 in the breezeway of the Dewitt building in Old Town Clovis and has done brisk business ever since.
Eight people shared in the tip, giving them roughly $73.19, though front of the house workers often get a little bigger share, she said.
“The servers were just so thrilled because they were all blessed by that man,” Julie Glenn said.
Servers aren’t required to share their tips, but Justin usually does, she said.
I hope to see him so I can say thank you.
Justin Glenn
who received a $585.50 tipThis isn’t the first time something heartwarming has happened at the restaurant that opened in December of 2013.
Last year, a customer decided to pay a neighboring table’s bill. The move launched a week-long pay-it-forward movement in which customers bought other people’s meals.
Just last week, two customers separately asked to pay for the meals of a two military members dining in the restaurant, Glenn said.
“We feel like we have got the most amazing customers in the world,” she said. “All of this is just a testament to that.”
This story was originally published August 7, 2015 at 11:20 AM with the headline "Server at House of Juju in Clovis gets $585.50 tip."