Nice guys don’t win.

That was the lesson that 67-year-old waiter Ron Kinney learned after he received a $1,000-plus tip at a West Hollywood restaurant recently but elected not to cash it because he thought it was a mistake.

Turns out, Kinney told The Chronicle this week, the gratuity was from the anonymous and absurdly generous diner “Tips for Jesus,” the man who has been famously traveling the country leaving a trail of big tips. Kinney said he didn’t recognize the moniker on the credit card receipt that recorded his tip.

“I was pretty naive, I guess,” he admitted. “I thought it was someone who had a drink too many and didn’t realize what they were doing. … We see this all the time. People make mistakes.”

Kinney and his fellow co-workers at the French Quarter Restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard have been searching for the discarded credit card receipt since they learned about “Tips for Jesus”. But no luck.

With no recourse, Kinney contacted The Chronicle, which has written about the big tipper’s stops in California.

Kinney said his lost tip from the holidays last year was either $4,000 or $7,000 on a bill that was no more than $50. He can’t remember the exact amount of the gratuity because he dismissed it as unrealistic at the time. But it’s money that he wished he had accepted now.

“The money would sure have come in handy for me to help for retirement. We have no such plan at work,” he said.

The man behind “Tips for Jesus” is reported to be former PayPal Vice-President Jack Selby. The diner’s West Coast stops include a handful in San Francisco, such as Roka Akor on Montgomery Street, Tacolicious at the Ferry Building and Harris Steakhouse on Van Ness Avenue.

Many of the tips are documented on the Twitter account @Tipsforjesus. The account reads, “Doing the Lord’s work, one tip at at a time.”