Generous Customers Give Cranston Waitress $458 Tip

A very generous couple out for dinner at a local restaurant felt their server deserved a good tip.

So they left $500 to cover their dinner at . That left server Janice Ruggiero, who has worked the restaurant in Cranston for 15 years, with a $458 tip.

"I thought it was a mistake," Ruggiero told the Providence Journal.

The couple bought a pizza, a sandwich, salad and a pitcher of beer.

Ruggiero didn't know how to get in contact with the couple, so she put the money aside.

A single mother, Ruggiero saw the couple a second time about a month later. They said it wasn't a mistake.

"You deserved it," the man said, the Journal reported.

For their second visit, the couple left $70 to cover their $48 tab. 

Uncle Tony's owner Ed Carosi said he saw an episode of the "Today" show during which a Kentucky man who died July 7 asked family members to tip $500 for small meals in his will. The intention was to give hard-working servers and food service employees a special bonus — something those jobs often lack.

The man's family has raised more than $60,000 through a website in his name, www.aaroncollins.org. 

But Ruggiero was tipped before Collins' July 7 death.