After Trader Joe’s employee surprises family with Key lime pie, they return the favor

A Trader Joe’s employee’s sweet gesture to a customer came back to her in an even sweeter way.

Earlier this month, TikToker Sophie Greene (@sophiegreene_) posted a video showing her father, Jeff Greene, bringing a homemade treat to a Trader Joe’s employee named Tara.

While driving to his local Trader Joe’s, he explains to the camera the reason behind this special delivery.

A few days earlier, he says, he and his family went to the store looking for sweets and saw a Trader Joe’s Key lime pie in a box and wondered aloud if it was any good.

“Tara, who was putting out other desserts said it was her favorite dessert in Trader Joe’s, and I said, ‘Well, I make a pretty good one, too. But let’s try this one,’” he says.

Jeff said his family finished shopping for their other items and were about to check out when Tara found them in line. The TJ’s worker picked up the box of Key lime pie that was in Jeff’s cart and replaced it with one that she had bought for him.

“Was such a nice surprise, it was so unexpected, so I decided that I was going to make my homemade Key lime pie and bring it to Tara and that’s what we’re doing,” Jeff says, laughing. “If a stranger brought me a pie, not sure if I’d eat it, but here’s hoping Tara at least appreciates the gesture.”

In the video, Jeff walks, pie in hand, through the familiar aisles of the Trader Joe’s. He passes the chain’s famous 23-cent bananas, through the frozen foods aisle and stands waiting at the back of the grocery store when a smile appears on his face.

“Oh my God!” Tara says, walking into the view of the camera. “This made my day, you don’t even know.”

Jeff tells Tara he hopes the gesture isn’t “creepy” (she replies “it’s not creepy,” much to his relief) and he starts telling her about how he made sure she was at work so that he could bring the pie directly to her. Tara, listening, begins to tear up.

“Can I give you all a hug? You don’t know how much this made my day,” Tara says, wiping a tear from her eye. “This was so nice of you to do.”

After Jeff instructs her to keep the pie frozen, he thanks her again — and she asks how they liked the TJ’s pie.

“We didn’t try it yet!” Jeff says, to laughter. “But I had to reciprocate.”

Trader Joe’s declined our request for comment, and we were unable to get in touch with Tara.

The Greene family’s TikTok garnered lots of attention, with over 443,000 views, 61,000 views and 1,800 overwhelmingly positive comments as of this writing.

“Omg this is so wholesome 😭 we need more of this in the world,” wrote one user on TikTok. Another added, “Wait I’m crying now too.”

For the Greene family, all this attention on their viral gesture is unexpected, but totally welcome for several reasons.

“My wife and I were kind of just hanging out and I said, ‘You know what? Let’s make the pie,’” Jeff tells TODAY.com. “When we first gave the pie to Tara and she started to tear up, we just realized that this is just so much bigger than we originally thought.”

Sophie, one of Jeff’s four children, says having her kind-hearted father is such a blessing.

“I would say first off is very much a girl dad,” Sophie tells TODAY.com, adding that he grew up with three sisters , and he’s always been in touch with his sensitive side. “I think that helps in the way that he goes about life.”

“You can say I’m the crier of the family for sure,” Jeff adds.

The family appreciates all the kind responses they’ve received from the TikTok, and suggests we all perform more acts of kindness that come naturally, like they did.

“Don’t do it in a way where you think it’s gonna go viral — we obviously didn’t,” Sophie advises. “You have to find something that actually makes sense to you, or I don’t think it comes across as genuine.”

And for those wondering, the Greenes still haven’t cut into the original Trader Joe’s Key lime pie yet.

“We can’t really go back to Trader Joe’s until we’ve actually tried the pie that she bought us,” Jeff says with a chortle.

“But I love the comments because it just seems so genuine and people were just genuinely happy,” he continues. “Like, everybody needed it. You know what I mean?”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com