DUBOIS — Friday was just another busy night for Amber Sessock at the Cowboy Café when two women changed her life with a tip so unexpected, it left the young waitress in tears.
The two women Sessock had waited on gave the 25-year-old a nearly $1,500 tip.
The tippers who surprised Sessock were Brandi Macumber and Tamara Bane, best friends on their annual road trip from their home in Iowa.
Each night, they choose a local restaurant and then surprise their server with a large tip that they have collected that day from the followers on their “You Can’t Be Serious” Facebook page.
“We get to make someone's day,” Bane said. “We're gifting what our followers are donating that day.”
On Friday night, that was Sessock, who got that day’s donations of $1,489.53.
For the young woman who’s been working at the Cowboy Café since she was 14, it’s an amount of money that can make a real impact on her life.
“I don't think I'll ever experience something like that again,” Sessock told Cowboy State Daily. “Last night, that was something amazing and I will never forget that, ever.”
The servers Macumber and Bane tip across the country are always so shocked and thankful with their enormous tips, they said.
“It always seems to be just the right place at the right time,” Macumber said. “We once had a girl that was crying and she's telling us that her car just broke down and she wasn't sure how she was going to pay rent.
“Then we showed up and gave her a tip that was over $1,000.”
The moment Amber Seasock is told she's getting a nearly $1,500 tip for waiting on a pair of road-tripping friends in Dubois, Wyoming, on Friday, July 18, 2025. (Courtesy Tamara Bane and Brandi Macumber) 
By 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Tamara Bane, left, and Brandi Macumber had raised over $500. The money will be used to tip their server that night. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Tamara Bane and Brandi Macumber are on a road trip from Iowa and are exploring Wyoming. Each night, the two best friends tip their server over $1,000 from donations as part of their tipping mission. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Mark Hoffman of Minnesota is riding through Wyoming when he heard of the tipping mission of Brandi Macumber and Tamara Bane and donated to their cause. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Brandi Macumber, left, and Tamara Bane are best friends from Iowa on a fun road trip through Wyoming and stopped at the Wyoming Bath House in Thermopolis. As part of their adventure, they tip their servers each night with a tip that can be well over $1,000. It is all part of their tipping mission. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily)
Tipping At Dubois’ Cowboy Café
At the Cowboy Café, it was a busy Friday night and took the women a while just to get seated.
Sessock said they were “super nice” and she enjoyed having them in her section. After they paid for their meal, they asked Sessock to stick around for a second.
“I kind of got a little nervous because they asked for the whole restaurant's attention, and I didn't really know what they were going to say,” Sessock said.
Macumber explained to everyone in the café how they collected money each day from their followers in a Venmo account and asked for guesses of how much they had collected in just that one day.
“A few people in the restaurant guessed about $100, which already would have been incredibly generous,” Sessock said. “But when they said $1,000, honestly, I just completely broke down into tears. I was in total shock.”
It was a surreal moment for the young server who had seen things like this on TikTok but never expected to experience it herself.
“I have been working in this restaurant since I was only 14 years old,” she said. “I've met so many incredible people in there over the years, but this moment was definitely different. Moments like that just make all the hard work worth it.”
A Mission To Celebrate Servers
The tipping mission began after the best friends nearly didn’t get served at a busy restaurant in 2021.
They had started going on their road trips in 2019 and were looking for a place to eat.
“They said, ‘Oh, it's going to be two hours before we can serve you, and we might be closed by then, so you might not get served at all,’” Macumber said. “We were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we've got to do something to show servers that they're appreciated.’”
Both women used to waitress themselves and understand how underappreciated servers can be, so they decided that on their trip the following year they would give a large tip each night.
Since they are on a limited budget themselves, they set up a Venmo account for donations and expected to raise about $100.
“That year it blew up,” Macumber said. “We had $2,600 that we gave out in one night.”
When they decided to start a Facebook page to post their tipping adventures, the name for their tipping mission became You Can’t Be Serious, since that is what most of the servers would say when they realized what the tip was going to be.
“The first year it blew up more than we thought,” Bane said. “We had radio stations calling us, and the very last day of our first year doing this, we actually had a TV crew record it.”
“Kelly Clarkson actually reached out to us and we were on we were on her show via Zoom,” added Macumber. “We were shocked by that, but that's how it kind of started.”
This year, they added a new twist.
Previously, they would sit quietly with the server and hand over the large tip. On a whim, Macumber suggested that they announce to the entire restaurant what they were doing to get them in on the fun.
Bane was embarrassed by the idea and threatened to sit in the car, but in the end agreed to try out Macumber’s plan. The other guests and their Facebook followers loved it.
“We have a lot of people donating to the tip,” Macumber said. “Neither one of us could afford to do anything like this, and it’s such a wonderful feeling to be able to be the vehicle for this.”
“Even if our account only gets up to $500, how amazing would that be?” Bane added. “You get a $500 tip on a $40 meal that night? It's just awesome. I would probably cry like that for $100, let alone $1,400.”
The Wyoming Trip
The best friends are enjoying their time in Wyoming beyond just the tipping. They are tent camping across the Cowboy State and are busy taking in all the sites.
Whether it is waking up in a 40-degree tent in Dubois without hot coffee or soaking at the Bath House in Thermopolis, these two road-trippers are having a blast in Wyoming. They came into Wyoming through the Black Hills and their first stop was Devils Tower.
“We were surprised when we drove into Wyoming with all the rolling hills,” Macumber said. “We went into Yellowstone and came through Grand Teton.”
“The Snake River, it's beautiful. Yellowstone is amazing,” Bane said. “When you hit that Grand Teton mountain range, it's breathtaking.”
With poor internet service for posting their Facebook videos, the best friends took an unexpected trip to Cody to find a restaurant and good WiFi.
“We went there and that was a happy accident,” Macumber said. “What a beautiful drive out of Yellowstone and into beautiful Cody.”
They never know what restaurant they are going to, but their one rule is that it has to be local and not a chain restaurant.
The Local Fare
In Cody, they went to the Cody Steakhouse and, as usual, had a great time, even before they presented a large tip to their server there, Maria.
“They were so welcoming, and the host Frank was so sweet,” Macumber said.
The restaurant was busy and they didn’t have any reservations, but Frank seated them at a little table that was tucked away.
“It kind of seemed like a waiting area,” Macumber said. “But Frank told us that the food tastes the same in here as it does in the main restaurant.”
Bane said that it felt like an episode of “Cheers” as their host greeted guests by name.
“It was like your favorite grandpa,” Bane said.
As for their server that night, they said she was a sweet little girl from Minnesota and shocked to get a large tip.
As soon as they tipped Maria, their Venmo account returned to zero and they started collecting money towards the next night’s restaurant adventure.
Paying It Forward
One of the great things about the tipping mission, according to the best friends, are the people they meet and watching the servers pay it forward.
They have had people donate part of their tips to the next server as a thank you.
To show her own appreciation, the owner of the Cody Steakhouse donated $300, which became part of Sessock’s tip the next evening.
Complete strangers, such as Mark Hoffman of Minnesota, will also donate when they hear about the tipping mission. He overheard the conversation in Dubois and was soon pulling up his Venmo to donate to the cause.
“This restores people's faith in humanity,” he said. “I think it's important that we acknowledge the work that those people who work in the service industry. Too many times, they are so underappreciated.”
Sessock said that she just feels in awe that it happened to be her table the women were at Friday. She is putting the money toward her college fund so that she can go to graduate school and become a speech language pathologist.
“I just appreciate them so much,” Sessock said. “I just love that they're getting back to servers like that.”
Another rule the best friends follow is that they always give the big tip even if they get bad service.
“We've never not given that person the tip just because they weren't good, because it might turn their day around,” Bane said. “It might make a huge impact on them.”
Sessock agrees.
“It’s just something I will carry with me for the rest of my life,” she said. “I think that it just shows that the hard work is worth it because something good will come out of it.”
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
