If you work in a restaurant, finding a large amount of cash on the table might be one of those moments where you think you’ve just lucked out and scored a huge tip from some abnormally generous person, and you figure the money is yours to keep. Or, if you’re like one Applebee’s server who recently discovered $32,000 left behind, you turn it in and save the day.

A mother and daughter who went ate at an Applebee’s in Fresno, CA this week had made a few stops that day, including a bank, reports KFSN. They hadn’t planned on carrying around all that dough all day, but that’s how it worked out.

“We were going to deposit it to the safe box and they told us they didn’t have any available,” the daughter explained. She thinks her mother took the cash out of her wallet when it was time to pay for their meal, and didn’t put it back in her bag.

By that night, they realized the money — savings from the family’s business — was gone, and figured it wasn’t coming back.

The server who’d waited on them found the money left behind at the booth and turned it in, and police matched up the money with the family after they described the bag it was in and the denominations included. The family is planning to thank the server and police for reuniting them with their money, and hopes that the server will accept at least a little something as a reward.

But he doesn’t want to speak publicly about his good deed, his managers said, and might not take any reward he’s offered.

“He made it very clear that he did it because it was the right thing to do, not that he wanted anything in return,” an Applebee’s area director told KFSN.com.

Honest Applebee’s server reunites family, $32,000 cash [KFSN]

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