After thieves stole money from the tip jar at Stone Oven Gourmet Pizza & Eatery in Wichita Falls, Texas, the pizzeria came up with a clever idea to make it right for the employees. In the process, they ended up helping another victim they didn’t even know about.
As explained in a late-December post on Stone Oven’s Facebook page, the teenagers who swiped money from the jar left behind a clue: a tan Justin Bent Rail cowboy hat.
“Apparently the kids made a mad dash to run out the front door,” co-owner Ryan Thomas told TODAY.com. “Then one of the kids ran past the order window, reached in the tip bowl, grabbed all the money out of it and got through the door, at which point, I guess, one of the kids lost the cowboy hat.”
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After filing a police report, Stone Oven’s employees hatched a plan to make up for the lost tip money and ensure a little cowboy-style karma: They would auction off the fancy hat to the highest bidder on Facebook.
“We’re not a big fan of hats around here,” the post read. “However, we know the beautiful community of Wichita Falls is, and we would like to open up an auction….The highest bidder by Tuesday afternoon will win the prize of this authentic cowboy jicama-giga. All proceeds will be divided evenly between the three team members that lost out on tips last night. And balance will be restored to the Multiverse.”
But little did they know that another inhabitant of the multiverse had been robbed as well. According to a follow-up post on Facebook, the auction caught the attention of the hat’s true owner—“not the teenager that dropped it, but the gentleman whose truck was broken into that those kids had stolen it from.”
“While the owners of Stone Oven were prepared to meet this man in mutual combat to defend the wages of our team,” the post continued, “it was the team members themselves that decided this man’s head was indeed looking cold…we will be returning the property to its rightful owner.”
Additionally, Stone Oven’s owners gave each affected employee a $50 bonus “for altruism and compassion.”
“Not a bad result compared to the $20 that punk kid ran off with,” the post stated.
In the end, the employees made out like bandits. Honest bandits, that is. Some Stone Oven customers chipped in to help anyway, to the tune of a few hundred dollars, Thomas told TODAY.com. “Several people did go ahead and come by and just, out of the goodness of their heart, donated money to the staff over those couple days,” he said.
Thomas said he wasn’t looking to put the thieving teens in the hoosegow. “I’d rather somebody make them come back and wash dishes for eight hours straight or something,” Thomas told TODAY.com.
After all, a little hard work builds character. “A lot of people would do well to work in the service industry for two years out of high school rather than go immediately into college,” Thomas added. “I’m hoping they’ve learned their lesson with as viral as this [post] went and as much publicity as it had. Maybe they’ll turn over a new leaf.”
