WEBSTER, N.Y. -- At Maa's Diner, the syrup is flowing, the cook's are serving and the atmosphere feels just like home.
"Its family orientated, it's friendly," Chuck Cannioto, a regular at Maa's Diner said.
Cannioto would know. He finds himself indulging in the diner's food up to three times a day, but last weekend, there was a twist to his breakfast.
"One of the waitresses told me, she said, 'They're passing on,'" Cannioto said. "I thought she meant someone was dying."
Thankfully that wasn't the case.
"She said what they're doing is they're paying for someone's breakfast and they're telling them to pass it on," Cannioto recalled.
The waitress spreading the news about the good deed was Pat Rabetoy.
"We had a few tables in around 7:30 a.m. and there was a mother and daughter having breakfast," Rabetoy explained. "A gentleman came up to the register and said,' I would like to pick up their check."'
Just like that the impromptu pay-it-forward chain began.
"Wow, she said," Rabetoy recalled the woman saying. "I need to do that."
From breakfast through the lunch rush, 23 tables picked up checks for other hungry customers.
"Sometimes you know it was just two people would say I will take that table and there were four people," Rabetoy said. "So, they were paying for more than what they would have paid."
Rabetoy was so taken a back; she took to the Webster Facebook page to share her story. The post has received more than 2,500 likes, hundreds of comments and shares.
After 40 years of waitressing Rabetoy said it was the best shift ever.
"I've never seen anything like this, no, not for it to continue this long," Rabetoy said.
So, cheers to lifting forks instead of dumbbells to put a smile on someone else's face.