Paying it forward in Fresno: Anonymous man pays strangers’ bills at Mexican restaurant
A Fresno restaurant full of customers got to enjoy a free meal when a man decided to pay for all of the patrons’ tabs.
It happened around 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Cafe Leon Mexican restaurant near the intersection of Blackstone and Ashlan avenues.
“I couldn’t believe it,” restaurant owner Saul Gonzalez said. “Never seen something like that before in my 25 years in his business. He paid for the entire restaurant.
“It made me feel good the whole day just to see the smiles on everyone’s faces.”
It started when a man “dressed dapper and very business-like” informed the waitress at the end of his meal that he was ready to settle his bill — as well as pay for everyone else’s food.
Caught off guard and slightly confused, waitress Myrna Lopez asked which table the man wanted to pay for.
The man reiterated he wanted to pay the bill for all of the customers dining in, as well as a woman who overheard the conversation while ordering food to go. “Me, too?” the woman asked with a big smile, according to Gonzalez.
The man didn’t provide much of an explanation why he wanted to help random strangers and take on a bill that amounted to more than $500.
He just asked to remain anonymous.
“All he really said was, ‘Everyone deserves to be treated sometimes,’” Gonzalez said. “He left a nice tip for the waitress, too.”
Customer reaction
Raquel Wallace, a regular at Cafe Leon, decided to come to the restaurant Tuesday morning to cheer up her father. He had just come from the dentist and learned he needs a biopsy.
“He was a little worried,” Wallace said.
The father and daughter tried to enjoy their meals, but they were both a bit preoccupied with the news. Their moods drastically changed, she said, after finding out their food had been paid.
“We kept waiting for our bill,” Wallace said. “I finally told the waitress that we never got the bill. That’s when she told me a man at the register paid for it.
“I was so surprised. My dad and I were just all smiles. Something like that has never happened to us. My dad, he was a little heavy spirited when we got to restaurant. But that totally made his whole day.”
Soon after, more and more customers learned their restaurant bill had been paid.
Many of them looked around, curious to know who was the generous person.
But the anonymous man was gone by then.
And the restaurant staff, though they could figure out his name by simply looking at the credit card bill, did not reveal the generous man’s identity.
“A group of ladies were putting their hands over their chest in disbelief — their eyes were huge; their smiles were wide,” Wallace said. “It was just a really nice moment, and we all got to share it together.”
Paying it forward
While it wasn’t known how other customers reacted afterward to the anonymous man’s generosity, Wallace made sure that she would do something kind for others.
It started with a $20 tip for the waitress.
Then, Wallace said she went home and got online and made donations to three of her favorite charities.
Wallace said she overheard the group of ladies saying they planned to do something for others, too.
“I think we were all just moved by the generosity of one person,” Wallace said. “It was a nice reminder that in a world that sometimes seem filled with doom and gloom, there are genuinely nice people still out there.
“I don’t know that man. I don’t know if he won the lottery or paid with what little he has. But I hope he knows that he made our day. And we tried to pay it forward.”
