At Jenni's Noodle House on East 20th St. in the Heights, the servers answer the phone, work the cash register and serve the food, so they more than earn their tips.
"That's what we make our money from; it's extremely important and it reflects the work that we put out all day," said Mossie Burcham with Jenni's Noodle House.
On Saturday night at around 9:30, a man helped himself to the tip jar. It started when he walked in, asking for a water to go. As he walked over to fill it up, the restaurant phone rang and the server answered.
"He takes the phone into the kitchen to hand it off to someone. Comes back 10 seconds later and he see's the guy, leaving the front door, with the entire tip jar. He took the whole jar, cash and all," Burcham said.
Surveillance cameras caught him, but he was already out the door when the server returned. It was 30 minutes from closing, so the tip jar had an entire shift worth of tips. The server went home empty handed.
"It's a shame that, that level of trust, that there is a jar of money, that sits right in front of everybody all day long and we trust that, that is going to be respected and not reached into and not stolen," said Burcham.
The suspect was in and out in less than two minutes. Anyone with information is asked to call Houston police.
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