Wednesday's Smile: Happy 2020, $2,020 tip to Server @ restaurant

ALPENA, Mich. (AP) — The restaurant bill was $23. But the tip at a small-town restaurant in Michigan was much larger: $2,020.

“Things like this don’t happen to people like me,” server Danielle Franzoni told The Alpena News.

Franzoni, 31, got the tip while working Sunday at Thunder Bay River Restaurant in Alpena. The credit card receipt said “Happy New Year. 2020 Tip Challenge.”

Franzoni, a single mother, couldn’t believe the number, but her manager assured her the tip was legitimate.

She said she was living in a homeless shelter a year ago. Franzoni plans to use the money to reinstate her driver’s license and build savings.

“They don’t know nothing about my story. They don’t know where I’ve come from. They don’t know how hard it’s been,” Franzoni said of the couple who left the tip. “They’re really just doing this out of the kindness of their heart.”

Franzoni later went to a restaurant and left a $20.20 tip.

“That was my pay-it-forward,” she said, smiling. “I couldn’t do the other one.”