Tip From Generous Couple Replaces Waitress’s Battered Car

The story of a Christmas tip given to a waitress in Branson, Mo., has caught the attention of its community and now gone viral on social media.

Little did she know, but Cindi Grady had caught the eye of a couple of regulars at the restaurant where she works, the local Cracker Barrel.

Gary and Roxann Tackett, from Arkansas, had been frequenting the restaurant all summer. They say they had noticed an old, battered vehicle regularly in the parking lot. Gary thought it was abandoned because it was in such bad shape.

The Tacketts asked around the restaurant and were told that the car belonged to one of the employees. The couple decided that something needed to be done and they were going to be the ones to do it.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the Tacketts gave Cindi a car.

When Cindi spotted Gary and Roxann standing near a silver 2008 Ford Fusion with a red bow on it, she was overwhelmed with emotion. She says she had been feeling depressed and had planned to replace her car, which had been damaged by five encounters with deer, but she lacked the money.

In a video uploaded to Facebook by the Tacketts’ daughter, Gary told Cindi, “We’ve been watching you drive that [old] car all summer. ... We decided that you needed something better ... Merry Christmas.”

Cindi said, “It restored my faith in humanity. ... There are good people in the world watching ... that care ... and you might not even know them.”