Random Denny’s Customer Pays for Meals of Entire Restaurant and Leaves $1,500 Tip

They’re calling him the Denny’s Angel, a man who showed up alone at a Denny’s in Utah and left seven families and a waitress speechless.

It happened at one of the chain’s restaurants in Utah. An unidentified woman who works there shared the story with Love What Matters, where she said a man came in and asked to be seated in a waitress’ section who was a single mother. Thinking the request odd, she obliged and sat him with Crystal, a single mother living in a homeless shelter with her young son.

“You sat there for 2 hours just watching people,” the woman wrote. “7 families came in and ate while you were there and you paid every one of their bills, over $1,000 you paid for people you didn’t even know.”

The above photo was taken of the man, and Fox 5 DC was able to identify him.

His name is Briggs VanNess and his act of kindness was born out of tragedy. When the unnamed woman asked him why he did it, he responded, “Family is everything. I’ve lost all mine.”

Fox reached out and asked him more about his story.

“I grew up with a single mother of six– we were poor and homeless a lot. I’d spend many nights at my mother’s friends’ houses. My mother was dying from cancer, but some how managed to survive,” he said. “But I watched and suffered for years as I watched her work her hands to the bone to give us a good life. She raised us to be kind and help others. Many years down the road I was facing prison and getting in trouble and it ended up causing me to lose my family because I was a really terrible person.”

Now, however, VanNess is a changed man. He said that he fought his demons for many years and “finally found the light.”

“Now I’ve been helping others as I was raised to do, I spent many years becoming a better person. And now it’s time to pay it back. I’m a successful business owner and I help as many as I feel that need it,” he told Fox 5.

On top of paying for the seven families, VanNess left his waitress Crystal a $1,500 tip. His meal had come to only $21.34.

“You left before any of us could say thank you,” the woman wrote as a last remark in her post. “I hope you read this because you’re truly an amazing person and you stole the hearts of every one of us here. Thank you.”