Michigan fans leave Utah waitress $3,000 tip

Salt Lake City -- Michigan football fans may have been unhappy after their 24-17 loss to Utah on Thursday, but a handful were not feeling ungenerous.

Breanne Snow was given a $3,000 tip for a tab of $505 at 1 a.m. Thursday at Bourbon House bar in Salt Lake City.

Someone from a group of patrons wearing University of Michigan gear used an American Express Centurion Black Card to cover the gratuity, writing "@TipsforJesus" and "#GoBlue" on the receipt.

"I've been in the bar business for 19 years and I've never seen anything like this," said Jason LeCates, owner of Bourbon House. "I think it's awesome."

"I went and cried in the corner for a couple minutes," Snow said.

She said she and her boyfriend both work two jobs to pay off debt.

"We're working so hard and never see the payout from it," she said. "It came as such a relief. He could have picked anyone else in there, and for him to pick me, it meant a lot because we were working so hard."

LeCates said at first he doubted the legitimacy of the card, but Snow said before the group tipped her, they told her to go look up "Tips for Jesus" on Instagram. After she saw the tip, they took a photo of her for Instagram, she said.

"Tips for Jesus" has made headlines since 2013 when a $3,000 tip was left at a bar in Ann Arbor. The anonymous group takes pictures of the servers and posts them on its Instagram account, which has almost 89,000 followers.

The known record for the tips is an $11,000 tip left at an Arizona restaurant last year.

This isn't the first time a Utah server has been the beneficiary of an overwhelmingly generous tip. In 2013, big tippers spent a collective $6,000 in tips at Ogden bars for two tabs totaling $264.

amcdonald@sltrib.com

Twitter @amymcdonald89