$1,000 Tip Left at Ocean Grove Restaurant

This is such a heartwarming story!

At one of my favorite restaurants in Ocean Grove, The Starving Artist, a wonderful loyal, long-time customer wanted to show love and support for those hard-working servers.

This customer, whose name wasn't given, left a $1,000 tip on a $40-something bill along with a note that brought the owner and staff to tears.

The note expressed their love for the restaurant and the thankfulness that it has been able to reopen with outside dining for those summer residents who look forward to dining there.

The extra-generous tip was split among the 7 servers. So many restaurant employees lost their chance to earn much-needed money when the restaurant business was forced to close. Even now, with restaurants not being allowed to open at full capacity, many servers are out of work and missing out on the money they would have made for college or rent.

If I were rich, I would dine out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as often as I could and at as many locally-owned restaurants as I could hit in order to give them lots of business and I would also give enormous tips to honor the wait staff, bussers, and bar tenders.

Even without being rich, I am trying to show my support for outdoor dining and so many great restaurants that have already lost so much business from the spring to the early summer, and, still, can only make a small portion of that money back due to social distancing guidelines and without being able to offer indoor dining yet.

The last thing I want to see in the future is one ghost town after another here at the Jersey Shore due to closed restaurants sitting vacant because the owners couldn't survive the Covid crisis and had to close their doors.