Melbourne waitress bursts into tears after being tipped $10,000 by mystery customer

A restaurant waitress in Melbourne says she is 'extremely grateful' after sensationally being given a $10,000 tip on Saturday. Picture / 7 News

A Melbourne waitress says she is “extremely grateful” after a customer tipped her $10,000 on Saturday.

The mystery man dined at the Gilson South Yarra establishment on more than $500 worth of food and drinks with several acquaintances before adding the generous tip to the bill and handing it to Lauren.

Lauren, a university student, said she explained to the group that staff share tips between the restaurant’s 23 staff, however the man paying said he’d only leave a tip if she got 70 per cent of it, telling her to keep $7000 for herself and split the rest with her colleagues.

Lauren said she thought she must have misheard the customer and so asked him to repeat the amount he wanted to tip.

“I keep going over and over in my head the actual experience of it happening second by second … (it) was surreal and amazing,” she told Seven News.

“I made them say the number out loud because I thought ‘what if I have just gotten too excited and I’ve stupidly read an extra zero or something like that’.

“I am just extremely grateful, to know that they thought that much of my service is amazing.”

Cafe owner Jamie McBride said he was so pleased to see his employee gain some extra recognition from a group of customers.

“[It’s] very pleasing, it makes the team feel really special when they’re acknowledged, especially when no one’s ever expecting anything like that,” he told the Herald Sun.

“The whole staff were overwhelmingly proud of Lauren, we’re all taken aback by the generosity of the table in question.

“I was there, she just burst into tears.

“The generosity of some people is unbelievable.”

Gilson’s is a trendy Italian eatery frequented by social media models, influencers and reality TV stars.

Lauren said she is contemplating using the unexpected money on an overseas holiday.

“I’ve been able to think what can I do with this? I’ll be honest, I’ve never been overseas, so the first thing that everyone was saying to me was ‘go on a holiday’,” she added.

“That money’s going to help a lot.”