Michigan restaurant covers dinner for airman, family after surprise homecoming

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Michigan airman who surprised his mother on Saturday when he came home early received another surprise from a Grand Rapids restaurant — dinner on the house.

It was a story of one generous act being compounded by another.

Bradley Baker, a U.S. airman currently stationed in Germany, has spent the past seven months in Qatar, WXMI reported. He spent the last three months planning to surprise his mother, Dana Tosh, who is a waitress at a Grand Rapids restaurant.

When the moment came, Tosh was so overwhelmed that she messed up a customer’s order. But the man, instead of being angry, tipped Tosh $100 to take her family to dinner.

Tosh decided to go to the Amoré restaurant in Grand Rapids, and posted that decision on Facebook. Restaurant owner and head chef Jenna Arcidiacono said she received many calls from people offering to donate toward the family’s bill.

“People started calling me and donating money to pay for it,” Arcidiacono told WXMI. “It's kind of a fun pay it forward story."

Thursday night, the family enjoyed their dinner and ended it with a dessert tray before Arcidiacono told the family that dinner was free.

"It's the most humbling feeling I can't even put into words," Baker told WXMI. “This is a job I signed up for. This is a job I do every day. It was my choice. I don't feel I need any special recognition from it; it's not what I did it for. I did it for my family back home and everybody else. I love my country. That's what I do it for. I don't expect any special recognition, but the support we receive is what keeps us going."

Baker is home for ten more days and then returns to Germany. He returns home in July for a wedding and then will return overseas for “quite a while,” Baker told WXMI.

Cox Media Group