Coffee shop fights back against tipping fatigue by raising wages — and prices: ‘This is the future’

Tired of being asked to tip a minimum of $1 on your $4 coffee?

Move to Salt Lake City, where one trendy cafe has gone viral with their decision to eliminate tipping entirely. Don’t get too excited, though — that $4 coffee could wind up costing $5 anyway.

Nick Price, the owner of Three Pines Coffee, a small downtown espresso bar, made the game-changing announcement on Instagram after confessing to feeling the same “tipping fatigue” as many Americans, with touch screens and delivery apps with tipping options becoming the norm.

As of January 1st, Price said, his staff had been given a pay raise from $8 to $18. Menu items increased around $1, but most customers won’t feel the difference, with tipping now off the table, Indy100.com reported.

“The tip is essentially included in the price. So, the prices up on the board are exactly what you pay,” the owner of the popular pit stop explained.

A 2023 survey showed that nearly 75% of Americans automatically tip out of guilt when presented with the option on a touch screen.

Price said that his staff had been struggling during slower periods, when the store would be quieter and tipping would grind to a halt.

“Because we get pretty busy in the summer, tips are pretty good,” he said. “Then we get a little slower in the winter and tips are pretty bad. I didn’t feel it was right for my employees to be making less money in those slower months.”

Price hopes he’s not the only small business owner in town to take the leap.

“I look forward to seeing if any other businesses in Salt Lake jump onto this because I do think people are sick of tipping, and this is the future of our industry,” he said.

Three Pines joins some major names in the coffee business in eliminating tipping — Sey Coffee in Brooklyn has their own policy in place, as does Fuel Coffee in caffeine-crazed Seattle. The concept has been spreading slowly around the country in recent years.

The pushback appears to be part of a growing frustration with tipping as customers continue to cope with inflation and a rise in the cost of living — even some servers have had enough, with one gaining widespread notoriety on social media after revealing she rarely tips 20% anymore, when out on the town.

New York City workers hungry for an end to the ongoing tensions appeared to back a proposed new law that would eliminate the local custom of lower wages for tipped employees in favor of a flat, $16 minimum wage — a proposal 97% of city restaurants were said to oppose, according to the NYC Hospitality Alliance.

“It’s just the owners trying to be cheap,” Restaurant Row bartender Tiffany Rosario, told The Post.

“They just don’t want to have to pay us out of their own pockets,” she said.