$500 tip welcomes staff back
Patron shows appreciation for Rodizio Grill reopening
A customer left a $500 tip over the weekend at Rodizio Grill in Annapolis, a gesture franchise owner Anees Nammari said was greatly appreciated at the Brazilian steakhouse after a difficult year.
Anees Nammari talked to The Capital on Wednesday in place of his father Al Nammari, who runs the business but was getting treatment for cancer. The tip was left for a server on a bill of $118.68, with a note.
“Welcome Back Rodizio !!!! ” Nammari said his family runs the franchise at Westfield Annapolis and opened the spot in late November 2019. He said they barely got three months of normal service before COVID forced them to close because of statewide precautions aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19. They briefly reopened in June 2020 but found the 25% capacity limit at the time unmanageable and closed again.
“For somebody to appreciate us that much and do that, it was overwhelming.”
— LaTanya Carroll, lead server at Rodizio Grill
Gov. Larry Hogan lifted most restrictions on restaurant dining this spring, followed by Anne Arundel County.
The Nammaris opened for a third and hopefully final time April 1. But the restaurant has experienced the nationwide industry trend of labor shortages, and Nammari said the staff is running on fumes.
“One of the customers saw how hard the staff was working, how hard everyone was working that night,” he said. “It makes us feel so good to get that kind of support from our community.”
Nammari said servers, including the “Rodizio gauchos” who bring limitless meat to your table, pool their tips, so the gratuity benefited all the workers.
Lead server LaTanya Carroll said they checked that the tip was correct before accepting.
“For somebody to appreciate us that much and do that, it was overwhelming,” she said.
The generous tip was the latest in a series of extraordinary expressions of customer gratitude as restaurants struggled in the pandemic.
They were among the businesses most hard-hit by the COVID-driven recession that started last year and is only now beginning to lift. Many laid-off staff members had to seek unemployment and assistance from nonprofit groups and local government to put food on the table.
In December, waitress Lauren Jewel had to do a double take when she collected a receipt from a regular at the Evelyn’s in West Annapolis.
She and her manager Jennifer Zoller were stunned by a $2,020 gratuity. The customer left before they saw the large tip on the bill of $33.92 — and before they could thank her.
December was the month that Anne Arundel County tried to close all in-person restaurant dining as a surge in cases threatened to balloon.
The measure was blocked, however, when a group of restaurant owners challenged it in court.
The county dropped the order before a ruling, saying the delay had made the closures moot.
A server at Cafe Mezzanotte in Severna Park also received a generous that month, a tip of $200, the day after the closure announcement.