The staff at Baja Grill in Little Rock surprised the restaurant’s night-time host with a car for his birthday last week.
Heather Baber, the general manager at Baja Grill, said she and several other staff members came together to give Kelly Toler the car Sept. 10, the day after his birthday.
Toler had been relying on the bus and rides from other co-workers to get to work for the year-and-a-half he’s been an employee the restaurant, the general manager noted. She said he had been without a car since the engine of his last vehicle blew out.
Baber picked out the Toyota Avalon, which came from a used lot owned by one of Baja Grill’s regulars, she said, but the gift was a group effort.
“Everyone was thinking about it at the same time,” she added. The workers — some of whom don’t own cars themselves, Baber noted — pooled their money for the gift.
In a video that one of Baja Grill’s servers took of the surprise, Baber hands Toler the keys to his new car, complete with a fuzzy pink keychain.
The general manager called Toler “a really good worker” and added that he always comes in when he’s needed.