NJ Restaurant Workers Go Crazy When Think They Hit Powerball

But the celebration at Grissini’s Restaurant in Englewood Cliffs came to an abrupt end when employees realized they’d mistakenly compared Wednesday’s winning numbers to their Saturday ticket. But for at least a few glorious minutes, employees at Grissini’s Restaurant in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. thought they had hit the jackpot.

Staff at an Italian restaurant ecstatically leaped for joy after “winning” the $949million (£656 million) jackpot on Saturday January 9.

Problem is, the guy reading the numbers actually read off numbers from a previous drawing. One member of the staff even reportedly quit his job.

Let’s start with a scene from this past Saturday night, at the restaurant’s bar as Julian’s coworkers read Powerball numbers from one of the pooled tickets they purchased as a group.

“I’m staring at his phone, and I didn’t want to believe that”, Campos said”.

It turned out that they had received the winning numbers in a text message from someone who had copied them from the Powerball website.

“It was like a balloon deflating”, he said.

The dishwasher who threatened to quit laughed and put his apron back on, saying, “Back to work”, Devincenzi added. No one won the Wednesday drawing, which had a $528 million prize.

It’s not clear when they realized their mistake.