Alabamian who mistakenly ordered from N.S. burger joint sends cash and apology by mail
'I hope the amount enclosed is enough to cover the cost of my embarrassing mistake,' reads handwritten letter
Nova Scotians Darcy and Laura Clarke were gobsmacked this week when they received a handwritten letter from a stranger in the mail, along with $40 in cold, hard, American cash.
The money was to pay for an unclaimed order from Bentley’s Burgers and Fries, the restaurant the Clarkes run together in West Chezzetcook, N.S.
The letter — sent all the way from Alabama — was an apology for failing to pick up and pay for the order.
The sender explained that they had meant to order take-out from a different Bentley’s restaurant much closer to home, and were terribly sorry for the mix-up.
“My jaw hit the floor,” Darcy told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. “Hope for humanity yet.”
Cash covers the burgers and then some
Darcy is the one who received order in question — two cheeseburgers and fries — by phone on Oct. 1.
“I noticed there was a southern accent to it,” he said. “No big deal because we get tours coming through all the time. I took the order and just went on about our day.”
After more than an hour had passed, it was clear nobody was coming for the burgers. So the Clarkes gave the order away to another customer.
They didn’t think any more about it — until the letter arrived with an Alabama return address. It was dated Oct. 2, the day after the order was placed.
“Obviously, I called the wrong restaurant,” reads the letter, unsigned and written on loose leaf paper. “I hope the amount enclosed is enough to cover the cost of my embarrassing mistake. My sincerest apologies. God bless.”
In fact, says Laura, it was enough to cover the order and then some.
“Me and the husband have an ice cream shop that we run in the summer, so we were just going to put the remainder of that into the ice cream shop and give out free ice cream to the kids that come by in the summer,” she said.
Love in the time of tariffs
Darcy and Laura posted about the letter on the Bentley’s Facebook page, where Laura says it’s been seen more than 80,000 times.
“Every single comment was ‘God bless them.’ Most people were saying as bad as people are arguing about the tariffs, these are the good things that you hear,” she said.
“It’s been honestly just great, just fabulous to see the good support from everybody.”
The couple opened the restaurant three years ago and named it after their dog Bentley, who they jokingly refer to as "the owner."
Now they want to make sure the mysterious Alabamian sees what a positive impact their gesture has had, so they’re going to send a Christmas package to the return address on the envelope.
“We're gonna put some of all the positive comments that were on Facebook about it, and then we're going to photocopy those, put them in there with some of our stickers and some of our seasoning that we use,” Darcy said.
Darcy says it's nice to forge a human connection with one of Canada’s neighbours to the south at a time when the ongoing trade war has created tension between the two countries.
“Tariffs, they suck,” he said. “But we love everyone.”
Interview with Darcy and Laura Clarke produced by Chris Trowbridge
