Woman says she ordered a wrap at a Starbucks drive-thru window and pressed ‘no tip’. Then the cashier changed: ‘Genuinely stopped talking to me’

A woman says a Starbucks drive-thru worker went quiet and would barely look at her after she declined to add a tip at the payment window. According to BroBible, content creator Cléo Gauthier described the exchange in a video shared with her followers. She says she ordered a wrap and drove up to pay, where she was given the choice to tip or skip the tip at checkout. “I pressed the ‘no tip’ button, and she just stopped talking to me. Genuinely stopped talking to me altogether.

“She would barely look at me,” she says. From that point, she describes the worker as distant and the short stop at the window as awkward. She adds that she tried to ease the tension by sounding extra upbeat during the rest of the exchange. In the video, she admits she is unsure of the custom at a drive-thru. “I don’t normally tip counter service workers. Maybe I just don’t know about drive-thru service workers. Maybe you are supposed to,” she says.

She then asked her followers whether people should tip coffee shop baristas who serve them at a window. She says the worker’s reaction after she tapped the button is what bothered her, adding, “I feel like if the service is conditional on a person tipping you, that is no longer good service.” Her account of the visit comes entirely from her TikTok video.

Many Americans say knowing when to tip is not easy

A Pew Research Center survey found that 72% of U.S. adults say tipping is expected in more places today than it was five years ago. Only about a third say it is extremely or very easy to know whether to tip, at 34%, or how much to tip, at 33%. Most adults, 77%, say the quality of service is a major factor in whether and how much they tip.

The same survey found that 25% of adults always or often tip when buying a coffee, and 12% do so at a fast casual restaurant. Among adults who eat at sit-down restaurants, 92% say they always or often tip. More respondents opposed businesses suggesting tip amounts, including on a checkout screen, at 40%, than favored it, at 24%. About seven in 10 oppose automatic service charges.

Starbucks states that it is expanding card tipping to Mobile Order & Pay and to customers who use its app to Scan & Pay at the register. The coffee chain estimates that the new options and a bonus could raise what eligible workers receive by about 5% to 8% on average.

The company describes tips as “a gratuity provided by customers at their discretion” that is “not guaranteed.” It adds that what a tip-eligible worker receives can vary with “quality of service, customers served and other factors.”

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