Jack Selby, the managing director of Thiel Capital and the former vice president of Paypal, dropped a $5,000 tip after a Saturday dinner at The Leopard at des Artistes, located at 1 West 67th Street.
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons
A post on the Upper West Side restaurant‘s Instagram page states that Selby has been leaving four-figure tips for its servers for years, always with his signature “Tips For Jesus” inscription. Saturday’s bill had an additional “we will never forget” commemoration for 9/11.
The dinner’s total, before tip, was $194.88.
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Selby started leaving thousand-dollar-plus tips in 2013. While he never intentionally included his name, he was long-suspected of being the anonymous tipper behind the @tipsforjesus Instagram account, which documents the monetary gifts he’s left around the country.
While most of the receipts shown on this timeline are from restaurants out west – many in states including California, Wyoming and Arizona – a round of drinks at another Upper West Side seemed to verify the rumors in 2017.
A source told Page Six at the time that they’d spotted Selby at Guyer’s – the former wine bar at 286 Columbus Avenue between 72nd and 73rd Streets – and that “the bartender was brought to tears” after he gave her a $5,000 tip as well.
Several outlets indicate that “Tips For Jesus” is a movement involving multiple people, but Selby appears to at least be one of them.
In terms of the tagline, according to a no-longer-active website called Valley Wag (a gossip and news site launched in 2006 by Gawker, also no longer active), “all the Jesus talk is a joke.”
Best to avoid these “feel good” stories. They emphasize the low pay of many restaurant servers.
Also “Thiel”, the person, is a libertarian wacko, into young blood. Nope, not making this up.
The USA would be a better place with Canadian style single payer, then the restaurant workers would have access to the same medical care as this guy and Thiel. But Thiel’s against that.
Then there’s Thiel’s destruction of Gawker.
It’s a distraction from the real story that making basic income shouldn’t be an act of charity. US wages have been stagnant for 40+ years, tossing the serfs an occasional sack of gold coins isn’t to be lauded, it’s a symptom of a larger issue.
The prior comment seems confused. The server is employed by the restaurant, not the person who left the tip. The thrust of the article, at least for me, is that the person leaving the tip is quite generous and has been similarly generous on multiple occasions. That is a nice thing. We don’t know anything about the income of the server, neither does the prior commenter nor did the person leaving the tip. Not everything has to be boiled down beyond its meaning to politics and greed as the prior comment implies. Not everyone’s mind works that way.
?Zackly!
The question mark was originally an egg emoji, but apparently this site, from the 18th century, does not support personality! 😉 <—That was a wink.
“That is a nice thing. We don’t know anything about the income of the server”
We know they’re not paid much. Nothing like Thiel.
“We don’t know anything about the income of the server, neither does the prior commenter nor did the person leaving the tip.”
Actually, they, and we, do. The average check at an ultra-upscale restaurant like The Leopard – and thus the tip that accompanies it, even a “cheap” tip – is going to be many times greater than the average check at a local diner or “average” restaurant, so the servers at The Leopard are already making FAR more than servers at other places.
So while we may not know the EXACT amount, we know that the RELATIVE amount is many times higher. Trust me, no matter what the hourly wage might be, you would rather be a server At The Leopard than at Olive Garden.
That’s what makes America great. If the wait staff doesn’t like their job, they can apply for another! What a concept!! And, if they aren’t considered to be good enough at their jobs to be hired at The Leopard, they can work to get better at their jobs, and try again! Amazing!
What an ignorant and senseless comment! You clearly don’t understand the vagaries – and discrimination – that is inherent in the hospitality industry, possibly more than any other industry in the country, or how hiring in the industry works. you might want to actually learn something before making broad-brush, inane comments about something of which you know nothing!
It might not be the best thing to relate this regarding a restaurant at which the average price of an entree is in the $50 range, and thus the tips earned by servers even in “normal” situations are going to be many times what servers at most other restaurants might earn.
Now, if he had done this at a local diner or downscale restaurant, that might be a story.