Waffle House waitress Shaina Brown was stunned when a customer left her a $1,000 tip on his credit card on Mother’s Day. Unfortunately for Brown, the mom to three is just now getting her hands on the cash due to Waffle House’s tipping policy.

Brown received a tip totaling $1,500 while working at a Raleigh, North Carolina Waffle House during the wee hours of Mother’s Day. The customer, who wished to remain anonymous, told Brown to give $500 of it away and to keep $1,000 for herself. “He said, ‘I’m going to bless you today,’” Brown said. “He was just trying to show that there are still good people out there.”

As exciting as it was for Brown to receive such a tip, it is Waffle House’s policy to refund large tips left on credit cards. Considering that a lot of the people that tend to patronize Waffle House during the early Sunday morning hours do so after a considerable amount of partying, it’s understandable that the restaurant would want to verify such tips.

“When a guest makes a tip of this size, it is our procedure to refund the tip amount and ask the guest to make the tip in either cash or a check,” the chain told Fox News.

Nearly a month passed with no tip in sight, despite the fact that Waffle House had the customer’s name and should have been able to contact him in that time frame. The Charlotte Observer caught wind of the story and published a write up on the Waffle House tip issue earlier this week. No surprise there, but the news that a single mom was refused a $1,000 tip quickly sparked outrage in social media outlets.

Waffle House is dead wrong. How you gone refuse the tip to the employee? If she worked for her $1000 then it's hers!

— Jemila Moore (@jemimoore) June 11, 2014

that's a shame ,how can you block a persons tip ,when that is how they make most of their money wow !!horrible… http://t.co/EcjcTnbo0D

— Christine Y Thompson (@ACT4444) June 11, 2014

Fortunately for Brown, The Charlotte Observer writer Josh Shaffer was able to get in touch with the customer. The customer decided to take matters into his own hands and write the mom a personal check.

Now that Waffle House is getting raked over the coals for their tipping policy, the chain maintains that they always meant for the mom to receive her tip. Why it took a month and a writer for a newspaper to get the ball rolling hasn’t been addressed.

Our intentions were always for the associate to receive her tip. Our procedure is there in case a customer disputes the credit card charge.

— Waffle House (@WaffleHouse) June 10, 2014

In a post on Facebook, Waffle House says they will be reviewing their tipping policy to make sure situations like this don’t happen again.

Image via Facebook