Starbucks diehards are foaming at the mouth — and it’s not because they’re drinking frothy cappuccinos.
Earlier this fall, the coffee giant introduced an option to add gratuity when paying by card. Card readers now bear digital buttons to tip $1, $2, $5, a custom amount or nothing. Customers are roasting at the pressure to give a gratuity.
“I’m a cheap a– and I didn’t tip,” Laura Gonzalez, a 42-year-old paralegal visiting from San Antonio, Tx., told The Post. She grabbed a coffee at a Times Square Starbucks on Thursday and declined to tip on the keypad. “It was super awkward,” she said.
The exchange was so fraught that Gonzalez concocted a conspiracy theory when her drink order didn’t materialize.
“I had to put a new [order] in [and go through the process again],” she griped. “Do you think it was because I didn’t tip? Because that’s what I’m thinking.”
Some cranky caffeine fiends have taken to social media to sound off about the new tipping situation.
“19 [dollars] for two lattes and then you wanna ask for tip Starbucks?” Amira Younis, a 21-year-old Virginia Tech student, tweeted in frustration.
She’s all for paying it forward — just after getting exemplary service.
“I haven’t even gotten my drink yet, why would I tip you? I think it really steers customers away because of how uncomfortable it can be for us. Especially at a location where the service isn’t great,” she told The Post. “It feels backwards, like they’re performing the service [quality] based on the tip they’ve either already got or not gotten.”
Baristas also aren’t on board with the new system, despite long lobbying for an alternative to cash tipping. Some say it makes for awkward interactions. Employee Tates Rylee described the new system as cause for “social anxiety” in a clip she posted to TikTok that’s been viewed over 6 million times.
Another TikToker claiming to work for the chain jokingly posted about doing anything possible to avoid eye contact with customers at tip time. Other java-slingers are going so far as to hit the “no tip” button on the pay pad themselves to spare everyone potential embarrassment; despite it being a supposedly “fireable” offense, according to TikToker @yassimodo. (A Starbucks spokesperson declined to comment on the record on these matters.)
Some customers are opting out of the whole charged exchange. Longtime Starbucks loyalist Jill Guercio-Niebling, a 56-year-old Neonatal Intensive Care Unit nurse from Yonkers, recently decided to boycott the coffee siren and what she calls “guilty tipping.”
“There’s no tip jar in my NICU ward and we’re saving lives over here! This whole overtipping thing is past the point of ridiculous,” she said. “If I want to tip you, I will tip you, but this is just way too forced for me.”