Shake Shack kiosk upcharged non-tipping customers

On 8 August 2026, Brian Powell, a Utah resident posting as "B.D. Powell" on TikTok, recorded himself at a Shake Shack located in Salt Lake City International Airport ordering three shakes — vanilla, cookies and cream, and strawberry — through a kiosk. Powell said his wife had noticed the behavior on an earlier purchase and that he was skeptical, so "we basically went up and duplicated our order" while recording. When the couple declined the kiosk's tip prompt, the screen changed to say "Uh Oh! There has been a pricing update on one or more of your cart items. Please review these changes in your cart." After which, the prices of the shakes went up $0.50 each, from $5.99 to $6.49, adding $1.50 to the $18.46 pre-tax subtotal. The video drew 4.2 million views on TikTok within days and more than a million more on reposts.

Background

The restaurant is owned and operated by HMSHost, a concessionaire that runs more than 1,000 dining locations at nearly 80 North American airports, so the location's kiosk system is operated by the licensee rather than by Shake Shack itself. No kiosk or point-of-sale vendor was identified in any coverage of the incident.

Kiosk no-tip upcharge

Tech Times noted that no kiosk logs, point-of-sale records, or company documentation establishing the causal trigger were ever released, leaving it un-established whether the price update was triggered by the tip selection or happened to execute at that moment.

Shake Shack's response

Shake Shack first responded in a comment on the TikTok video: "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. 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." On 10 August 2026, Shake Shack made an official blog post stating that the licensee, HMSHost, investigated and determined it was a kiosk error "unrelated to tipping" and that "it is not Shake Shack policy, nor that of our licensees, to increase the price of menu items when no tip is added".

Consumer response

This incident caused many people to be upset at Shake Shack for allowing this to occur. A user on X stated, "This is should be a class a action lawsuit and they should face fines". Others stated the issue with tipping culture in the United States, with one person commenting, "tipping culture in the US has reached an intolerable toxic limit". Coverage tied the reaction to growing "tipping fatigue": a Popmenu survey cited in the reporting found 78 percent of American consumers experiencing it in 2026, up from 53 percent in 2023. On 13 August, an NBC News correspondent re-tested the behavior at a different Shake Shack location, ordering shakes and declining the tip, and the pricing change did not occur; the reporter concluded the episode "really does seem to be a one-off case at that airport in Salt Lake City".