Update: raised my latte price 50 cents at my spot in Echo Park and nobody blinked
I was scared regulars would bail but I sold 12 more lattes that week than the week before, so now I'm wondering if anyone else has tested a small bump and gotten the same weird result.
My buddy runs a little coffee cart near the beach and did the same thing last summer, bumped his drip coffee by a quarter thinking his morning crew would riot. Dude sold out three days in a row that week and the same folks kept coming back like nothing changed. He figured out later that most people just don't track prices that close when they're already hooked on the routine. Kind of wild how the fear is way bigger than the actual result.