The Touching Moment a Missouri Waitress Got the Tip of a Lifetime
— -- A waitress' commute to work will now be an easier ride thanks to a generous couple's tip: a car.
Gary and Roxann Tackett of Quitman, Arkansas, surprised Cindi Grady, a waitress at a Cracker Barrel in Branson, Missouri, with a silver 2008 Ford Fusion on Nov. 29. to replace her dilapidated Hyundai Accent.
"I was totally shocked," Grady, 51, told ABC News. "I don't expect. ... I never thought in my wildest dreams that someone would ever give me a car that nice."
The Tacketts first noticed Grady's vehicle this summer in the driveway of Cracker Barrel the few times they ate there. The blue Hyundai had a banged up hood held down by a strap. The frame was bent with the driver seat side window shattered and covered in plastic wrap.
The couple, upon realizing someone was driving the car, asked a hostess at the restaurant for the name of the owner.
"It was almost like someone had abandoned the car," Roxann Tackett told ABC News. "You just notice things like that."
The Tacketts, who own a hardware store called Central Arkansas Tool Supply in Quitman, found out that the car belonged to Grady and the restaurant told them that Grady was a hard worker just trying to make a living for herself and her disabled son.
The couple then set to work finding her a more "dependable" car, eventually purchasing the Ford in November for $2,500.
"After finding that she's a good employee, and that she has a disabled son, we thought, 'Okay, we can help her,'" Roxann Tackett told ABC News.
Grady told ABC News that she is grateful to the Tackett's whom she called "nice, god-fearing people" and loves her Ford.
"It's nice knowing when I wake up that I don't need to worry about my car car starting," she said.
