A Texas pizzeria is being celebrated for the way it handled the theft of a tip jar.
On December 28, Stone Oven Pizza, a restaurant in Wichita Falls, Texas, posted on Facebook about an incident that occurred around closing time the previous day. According to witnesses, a group of teenagers stole the contents of an employee’s tip jar, but apparently left a clue behind.
“Last night our crew encountered an incident involving teenagers stealing tips from the tip jar,” the original post read. “Luckily they left this hat behind, though.”
The cowboy hat left behind by the thieves.
The evidence in question was a tan cowboy hat belonging to Justin Bent Rail.
“We are not big fans of hats here, but we do know the beautiful community of Wichita Falls and we would like to open an auction,” the post continues, adding that the highest bidder in the comments section by that following Tuesday afternoon “saw this authentic cowboy jicama-giga!” would win.
The pizzeria stated that all proceeds would be divided evenly among the three team members who lost their tips that night – and that “balance would be restored to the Multiverse!”
Several people applauded the pizzeria’s response in the comments section — with many posting bids in the hat or leaving suggestions on how to catch the perpetrators.
“Most likely that hat has never been outside the city limits,” one Facebook user wrote.
“Save it and use it as your new tip jar,” another suggested.
“Have you seen Cinderella?” someone else asked. “Line up all the men in the kingdom. We’ll find that prince charming!
The empty tip jar.
“Apparently the kids made a mad dash to run out the front door,” Ryan Thomas, co-owner of Stone Oven Pizza, told TODAY.com. “Then one of the kids ran past the order window, reached into the tip bin, took out all the money and went through the door, and then, I think, one of the kids lost the cowboy hat.”
Thomas says his employees filed a police report that evening and decided to auction the hat. Two bidders offered $200 for it and were close to winning the woolen crown Real owner came forward.
“Over the past few days, we’ve received some fantastic responses to this post, and the community has opened their hearts to our employees,” the December 30 update reads. “What this attention also did was allow us to discover the original owner of the hat…not the teenager who dropped it, but the gentleman whose truck was broken into and the kids stole it from.”
The trio of employees decided to return the hat to its original owner and were rewarded with a $50 bonus for their “altruism and compassion.”
Thomas says that in the aftermath of the incident, the community added a few hundred dollars to the pot so the trio could split as well.
“Several people came by and donated money to the staff out of the goodness of their hearts during those few days,” he said.
When asked about the thieves’ fate, Thomas says he’s not trying to send anyone to jail.
“I’d rather have someone have them come back and do the dishes for eight hours or something,” he says.
Thomas’ proposed sentence is reminiscent of the case of Rosemary Hayne, an Ohio woman who was convicted of assault in 2023 for throwing a burrito bowl at a Chipotle employee. A judge sentenced her to work at least 20 hours a week at a fast-food restaurant for two months to shorten her prison sentence.
“Many people would do well to work in the service industry for two years after high school, rather than going straight to college,” he says. “I hope they have learned their lesson now that this has gone so viral and with so much publicity. Maybe they’ll turn over a new leaf.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
