BENTON HARBOR, Mich. (WOOD) — The server who received a $10,000 tip has been fired from the Benton Harbor restaurant where she worked.

Mason Jar Café co-owner Jayme Cousins told News 8 in an email that labor laws prohibited management from providing the full details of the server’s dismissal, but added, “I can say it was not affiliated with the tip she received.”

“I know there is a lot going around that we let her go because of the tip and that’s just not logical,” Cousins wrote. “(W)e have a staff that has continued to work for us for years and college kids that come back every summer and we give chances after chances to our staff, so we clearly would not let someone go for no reason at all.”

She said management did not make the decision lightly, that firing an employee was “something we always try to avoid at all costs,” and that “in this case it was purely a business decision.”

News 8 has not been able to contact the server for comment.

On Feb. 5, a Mason Jar Café customer left a $10,000 tip on an about $32 bill. He said he was doing it to honor the recent death of a friend; he was in town to attend the funeral.

“Absolute disbelief to begin with,” restaurant manager Tim Sweeney told News 8 last week. “We went back and forth. I had a conversation with him. He wanted to proceed. (The server) was absolutely shocked.”

The tip was split nine ways among staff members.

“It was just really an act of kindness that impacted so many people,” waitress Paige Mulick, who received a share and said she would use it to help pay off student loans, previously told News 8.

The restaurant’s Facebook post announcing the tip has been deleted.

—News 8’s David Horak contributed to this report.