'Humanity at its best’: Customer leaves $2,500 tip as Ohio restaurant closes due to coronavirus

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Restaurant workers are facing a difficult time, as the spread of the coronavirus is causing state governments to close eateries. But workers at one Ohio restaurant got a wonderful sendoff Sunday night.

Several hours before the Coaches Bar and Grill in Columbus closed for an undetermined time Sunday, a loyal customer left a $2,500 for the restaurant’s staff members to split, WCMH reported. The dinner bill was $29.75.

Gov. Mike DeWine announced that all Ohio bars and restaurants were to close Sunday at 9 p.m. -- except for carryout and delivery -- so the generous tip was a welcome relief for the workers who could be facing financial hardships because of the shutdown.

“It brought some of them to tears, they are going to split it, 13 ways and it’s going to help them and we are a family and we will get through it together,” Coaches employee Benny Leonard told WCMH.

The patron, who wished to remain anonymous, was a regular customer, servers told the television station. On his bill, he wrote the tip should be split equally, naming them on the note, the television station reported.

“(There were) tears, tears of joy,” Leonard told WBNS. “An unbelievable act of kindness on a pretty weird day.”

While Coaches Bar will still do business with carryout and delivery, the customer’s generosity brightened an otherwise somber day for the restaurant’s staff.

"We’ve got unprecedented times going on, we’ve got people fighting over toilet paper and so on and so forth, and to have a guy show up and care enough about people that give him a beer and a hamburger once in a while, that means a lot,” Leonard told WBNS. “It’s humanity at its best.”

Cox Media Group