The big-spending, big-hearted diner who signs his restaurant checks “Tips for Jesus” has hit Manhattan after giving thousands of dollars to waiters in a cross-country tipping spree.
The generous restaurant-goer left one lucky server at NoMad in the Flatiron District a $7,000 tip over the weekend, while another at The Smith near Lincoln Center got $3,500 and a waiter at Bo’s Kitchen in Chelsea raked in $1,000.
Bo’s waiter Aruj Dhawan told The Post that his big tipper was eccentric former PayPal Vice President Jack Selby, who’d been rumored to be behind the random acts of kindness.
“A stranger comes in and drops a thousand dollars . . . I was just really thankful,” said Dhuwan, 25, on Monday.
One of the three NYC receipts had “Tips for Jesus’’ written across the bottom, while the other two came with a hand-scrawled “God bless!” and an ink-stamped “@tipsforjesus” — which happens to be the name on the anonymous Instagram account hosting photos of happy servers and their oversized gifts under the tagline, “Doing the Lord’s work, one tip at a time.”
The mascot for the account is the winking “Buddy Christ,’’ a parody religious icon from the twisted 1999 comedy “Dogma.’’ The tipping campaign was launched Sept. 8 with the words “Here we go” and the posting of a $3,000 gratuity at Bar Louie in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the “tipsforjesus” crew spent a mere $87.88 — pre-gratuity, that is.
Dhawan said Selby was among a “very well-dressed’’ party of three — including another man and a woman — who entered the West 24th Street eatery at around 11 p.m. Saturday. The group ordered $111.05 in beers, bourbon, pasta, shrimp and pork chops.
Then, “as I was about to drop the check off, one of the men said they would ‘make my night.’ They called me over, gave me the check — I was amazed,’’ Dhawan said. ‘’They took a picture [with me] and literally, just like that, they walked out.”
Dhawan, born in India and slated to graduate from the Fashion Institute of Technology in two weeks, was “the hero of the night’’ at Bo’s — where the staff pools its tips and divvies them up.
Manager Benjamin Cramer, 25, said he questioned the “gentleman” tipper.
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I said, ‘Why tip so much?’ He said, ‘Just because.’ I was told, ‘We tip a hundred times the bill.’ ”
A NoMad spokeswoman confirmed the “mystery tipper’s presence’’ there Friday night — and the $7,000 tip on a $2,994.61 bill — but declined to divulge any further details.
A night earlier, the “tipsforjesus” crew left Andrew Thomas a $3,500 gratuity on a $391.95 bill at The Smith. “[The man] said, ‘I’m going to tip you extravagantly,’ ” Thomas told CBS.
Selby is one of the original PayPal members who made a killing when the company was sold to eBay.
Additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory