Arkansas waitress shocked by $2,000 tip

Loran Lopez, 19, is a part-time waitress at Logan’s Roadhouse in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

While working the Tuesday lunch shift last week, the University of Arkansas -Fort Smith student handed a regular customer a $278.55 bill.

“She gave me the receipt, and I didn’t look at it,” Lopez told ABC News. “I finished serving her and walked to the computer to put my tip in.”

At the computer, Lopez saw that the customer had added a $2,000 tip.

“I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped to the floor, and my heart stopped,” Lopez told KFSM.

The customer hadn’t left the restaurant yet, so Lopez approached her, hugging her and thanking her “a million times.”

“She said, ‘I know I don’t have to tip, there’s no gun pointing at my head, it’s something that I want to do for people.’ She used to be a waitress, too, so she just likes to give back,” Lopez recalled.

The customer, who asked to remain anonymous, is known to give large tips to the waitstaff at Logan’s Roadhouse and other local restaurants, because she believes waitresses deserve to be paid more.

The customer also tipped the bartender $700 and the cooks $100 each.

“I had so many rough nights here lately, and then she did that. I’m forever grateful for it too!” Lopez told KFSM.

Lopez told ABC News that she’ll be putting the tip towards her education expenses.

"It’s a blessing,” she said. “I’m very grateful for what she did. I didn’t expect it at all.”

In New York City last month, a restaurant patron identified only as Mike gave his waitress a $3,000 tip, simply because he wanted to pay it forward.

“This woman had been serving us for almost a year now. She’s a lovely individual, and she talked about how she was served an eviction notice last month,” Mike told ABC News.

With his tip, Mike only asked his waitress to visit ReesSpechtLife.com, the site launched by his former middle-school science teacher Richard Specht, who inspired Mike to pay it forward, and that she one day do the same for someone else in need.

“We lose track of the fact that it’s the small things we do that cumulatively make a difference,” Specht told Yahoo Parenting of his pay-it-forward movement. “I want people to focus on those small acts so we can regain that sense of community and compassion and respect. I get excited when somebody pays for a coffee for someone…I want to make the world a kinder place.”