It felt like a Shake Shack snafu for one customer.
In an age where “guilt tipping” seems to be spreading like wildfire, a frustrated patron has claimed that Shake Shack hiked up their bill after choosing not to tip at a self-service kiosk.
“My wife suggests that if you skip tipping at Shake Shack, they charge more per item,” said TikTok user B.D. Powell in a viral video that has garnered an impressive 4.2 million views.
Intrigued and skeptical, Powell decided to put this notion to the test. He ordered three classic shakes — vanilla, cookies & cream, and strawberry — at a Shake Shack located in Salt Lake City’s airport.
Efforts were made to reach out to Shake Shack for their take on the situation.
They cost $5.99 each according to the order screen.
The automated check-out then took them to the tip screen, where they were offered 15%, 18%, and 20% gratuity options as well as the choice to leave “no tip.”
But when Powell selected the latter — as is common at self-service outlets — all hell broke loose.
The screen displayed the message, “Uh Oh! There has been a pricing update on one or more of your cart items. Please review these changes in your cart.”
Upon obliging, the three shakes now showed prices of $6.49 each — total price increase of $1.50.
“Everything just went up fifty cents,” lamented Powell, who warned viewers to “not go” to Shake Shack.
Viewers were appalled over this alleged dirty tactic. “How is this legal?” wondered one commenter.
“It’s already too expensive to be worth it,” lamented another. “Forcing an extra charge is a deal breaker. I will never go there.”
“Tipping culture in the US has reached an intolerable toxic limit,” said a third.
However, others claimed that the customer had failed to establish a causal link with one Redditor noting, “you didn’t show what happens to the pricing when you do leave a tip.”
Meanwhile others accused Powell of skullduggery, claiming that he’d made a normal time-based price change look like a no-tip penalty.
“Pretty sure I saw this in a different sub, and people were saying the price increased because shake shack has a late night convenience fee past a certain time, and the people videoing timed the price change to make it look like a tip issue,” theorized one viewer.
Shake Shack has since denied that they were scam-burgering patrons.
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” they wrote in the TikTok comments, which have since been disabled. “This is not a Shake Shack policy, and we’re currently looking into it with our licensee, HMSHost, that operates the Salt Lake City airport location and kiosk system.”