An Arkansas restaurant is pushing back against allegations that they fired a server after she received a $4,400 tip.

Waitress Ryan Brandt was serving a party of over 30 at the Bentonville restaurant Oven and Tap on December 3rd when she was given the generous tip by a member of the dining party, Grant Wise. In a video capturing the gesture of goodwill, Wise can be heard thanking Brandt for the service she and another co-server offered before explaining why he and the dinner party were giving a generous $4,400 tip that the servers would share.

The members of the dining party call themselves "The $100 Club" because each member tips the server $100 at the end of the meal. In the video, Wise is seen telling Brandt before handing over the tip, "We put it out to our social media channels, and we actually had quite a bit more money sent in, so we are tipping a total of $4,400." The dinner party members can be heard cheering as Brant and Wise embrace.

The compassionate moment was short-lived because days after, Brandt shared the unexpected news that she was fired from the restaurant. “I was told that I was going to be giving my cash over to my shift manager, and I would be taking home 20%,” Brant shared with the local news outlet, KNWA. “It was kind of disheartening to find out that I wasn't keeping it because we don't tip-sharing anyway.”

Brandt explained that the owners of Oven and Tap deviated from the normal tipping policy by asking her and the other server to split up the generous tip, something Brandt explains she’d never had to do in the past.

After being asked to split the tip, Brandt reached out to Wise and told him about the events that unfolded. As a result, Wise reached out to the restaurant owners and asked them to give back the tip so that he could give it to the servers directly. Brandt alleges that after the restaurant gave the money back, she was subsequently fired from the restaurant. “They fired me from Oven and Tap over the phone and I've been there for three and a half years so that was also like really heartbreaking, especially when I didn't think that I did anything wrong,” Brandt explained.

The owners of the restaurant, Mollie Mullis and Luke Wetzel, shared in an interview that Brandt was not fired for reaching out to Wise or because she didn’t want to share the tip. “The employee terminated was not terminated for retaining the tip received that evening. Due to the privacy and the respect of our employees we don't discuss those employees’ affairs publicly.” Wetzel explained.

Mullis and Wetzel also shared in another statement that they “commended” The $100 Club for the generous tip to the staff. They add that the diners “have an absolute right to tip whoever they want, and we honored that request.”

While the owners did not give a specific reason for why Brandt was fired, they shared that “Oven & Tap doesn’t deliver terminations lightly. Because we value our employees and highly respect their privacy, we never discuss personnel issues.” Their statement goes on, “The server who was terminated several days after the group dined with us was not let go because she chose to keep the tip money. The other two servers who received generous tips that evening from the Witly organization – including one who also received $2,200 – are still members of our team.”

The owners also pushed back against claims that Wise called ahead to check the restaurant’s tipping policy and whether or not tips were shared with the rest of the staff, a common industry practice. In a post online, Wise contends, "Our team contacted (Oven and Tap) to get a reservation and confirm their policies surrounding tip sharing or tip pooling to get confirmation that they did not have such a policy." The restaurant owners pushed back in their KNWA interview. “They did not call ahead and ask about our tipping policy, nor did they email,” Mullis explained. “Because of the customer’s request, we honored it and handed it out to the servers that they asked us to distribute it to.”

Since the incident, Wise has set up a GoFundMe account to help Brandt recover the lost tip. Wise explained that any additional money from the GoFundMe would be used to host future dinner club meetings. Wise also shared that he was going to host another dinner party with the $100 Club and that Brandt was invited to join.