Brooklyn coffee shops no longer allow tips

They have been informed!

Some local coffee shops are ditching tipping, removing tip jars and — most importantly — automatic gratuity requests on iPad payment portals. Most customers are excited.

“I don’t have to decide how much to tip, I don’t have to do math,” enthused Anu Mohan, a 34-year-old who works at a cancer hospital in technology development and frequents the three-legged, one-leaf cat. cafe that opened in East Williamsburg over the summer with a line at the bottom of the menu stating that tax and tip are included and that the cafe is “proud” to provide employees with a living wage.

The move comes at a time when many feel tipping has gotten out of hand, with New Yorkers feeling pressure to tip not only at restaurants and hotels, but at hardware stores, dry cleaners and even exterminators.

Anu and his wife, Cassandra Mohan, 37, who works in public health, sometimes disagree on tips.

“We have arguments as a couple. For example, should you tip on baked goods? I think you should [just] tip the coffee because that’s what they do, and Anu tips the total as a percentage [of the whole bill] no matter what,” Cassandra said.

The lack of gratuity at some coffee shops may save customers a hassle (or a fight with a significant other), but it’s not saving money.

A drip coffee at the Three Legged Cat costs $4.50, roughly a dollar more than similar shops in the area, though some neighboring spots, like Sey Coffee, also discourage tipping.

At Principles GI Coffee Shop in Gowanus, owner Katie Bishop said that while many customers find the lack of a tip display “refreshing,” she has had some pushback on her prices — $4 for a drip coffee and $7 for a cappuccino .

“[Customers] I feel entitled to a drink half that price,” she said. “I’ve learned to respond with something along the lines of ‘would you like to know why my prices are what they are?’

This usually calms them down.

“If not, they’re not my target customer anyway,” she said.

When Taylor Siok opened Passionfruit in Bed Stuy last March, he wanted to do away with tips with the goal of giving employees more stability.

“My wife and I have been working in the hospitality industry since we were 19 years old and when it came time to open our project we wanted to think ahead,” said Siok.

He pays employees “in the mid-20s an hour,” including for non-customer-facing jobs like baking and closing. It also offers PTO, a rarity in the hospitality industry.

(In New York City, the minimum wage for food service workers is $16.00 an hour. Employers can meet that standard by combining a $10.65 cash wage with a $5.35 tip payment.)

Emily Williams, an owner and founder of Til Death in Bushwick, created a no-tipping rule so she didn’t have to play nice with disrespectful customers.

“We’d have rude people, people on the phone, people expecting us to be super flexible and accommodating to whatever they ask,” Williams said. “We have to be nice to them and do this performance just to get a tip… I want to make you coffee and not [be] EXPECT[ed] to have a conversation about your vacation or whatever you want to talk about.”

Williams and her business partner run the store themselves, with no employees, and she says she makes a living without tips.

Full-service restaurants in NYC have experimented with “no tipping” for the past decade with limited success.

In 2015, Danny Meyer announced that his Union Square Hospitality Group would phase out tipping, but, in 2020, he brought in increased bonuses as workers struggled through the pandemic.

“We don’t know how often people will eat out, we don’t know what they will be willing to pay. [But] we know guests want to tip generously now,” he explained at the time.

Restaurateur Andrew Tarlow stopped taking tips at his Brooklyn hot spots in 2015 only to leave politics in 2018.

But cafe owners say that tipping is more possible for them.

“The model is working and we encourage other businesses to give it a shot,” Siok said.

Michael Bewley, 50, who owns a coffee maker company and lives next door to the three-legged cat, said he hopes bars will start experimenting with no tipping.

“I have other things to worry about than sitting there discussing with my partner or friend whether we should do 18% or 15%,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time my tip was based on service anyway. It’s made based on what you should tip, what other people in your party want, etc. I don’t need the stress, I just want my coffee.”