After surging like the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl’s first 38 minutes, the no-tipping-at-restaurants craze has run out of gas.

In late 2015, when Danny Meyer announced that he would eliminate tipping across his restaurant empire — which includes Gramercy Tavern, Maialino and North End Grill — it seemed we were at the start of a revolution. Meyer was leading the way, and a number of high-profile restaurateurs including Brooklyn kingpin Andrew Tarlow and the Eleven Madison Park team jumped on board, while places such as Dirt Candy and Per Se were already operating based on the same model.

The “hospitality-included” revolution would benefit customers and restaurant workers alike. Diners would know how much to pay without doing math in dim lighting at the end of a boozy meal, and theoretically enjoy better service from staff who regard themselves as professionals who shouldn’t have to grovel for tips or push pricey menu options. Both servers and kitchen staff would enjoy more consistent, fairly distributed wages.

Now, less than 18 months in, the movement has stalled. Only a very few restaurants, including Midtown Greek spot Nerai, went no-tipping last year. Meanwhile, a growing number of restaurants that tried to go hospitality-included, including Tom Colicchio’s Craft, David Chang’s Momofuku Nishi, Italian staple I Trulli and West Village hot spot Fedora, have gone back to tipping. Meyer remains enthusiastically on board, but even his team admits it’s been more complicated than expected.

“It’s a big lift, like opening a restaurant all over again,” says Sabato Sagaria, the chief restaurant officer at Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). He says each place that’s converted to no-tipping has done better as “normalization” has taken hold over time. “Overall, as a whole, we are pleased the way it’s going. [But] it’s not without hiccups,” he says.

Owners who abolish tipping must raise menu prices between 20 and 30 percent — although this usually spares “hospitality” items like coffee and bottled water. Sagaria says USHG menu items were marked up 22 percent on average, “But each place is different. There’s really no formula.”

Then, how much employees should be compensated has to be calculated. Meyer’s management team studied how much employees in various jobs made in the past. It then set up a compensation “equation” to equalize the pay in each position, irrespective of shifts worked. If servers averaged $28 an hour including their hourly rate and tips, they’d average $28 an hour without tips — instead receiving their hourly rate plus a cut of the revenue share. However, this is based on staff, not individual, averages. Thus, a waiter who takes home $28 an hour under the new system might have made more, or less, when tips were the rule.

Such complex calculations are beyond most smaller restaurants, which operate on extremely low margins, usually around 7 percent, and testing the no-tipping waters can wreak havoc on a fragile business model.

In April 2016, Freek’s Mill opened as a no-tipping eatery in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Four months in, it had to quietly revert to a tipping model.

“It was difficult,” says owner J.T. Stewart. “As a new restaurant, we didn’t have years or months of a traditional model to reference to help project how a new system should be run.”

In theory, a no-tip system helps to level the playing field among workers who have traditionally been compensated all over the map — from kitchen staff who might make as little as $500 a week to waiters raking in up to $1,500 a week.

But, for some tipped workers, that’s not necessarily a good thing. A friend of mine has made $500 in a single night, mainly in tips, as a bartender. If her place were to go hospitality-included, the gravy train would likely be over.

On the other hand, no-tipping is a boon to hard-working kitchen staff who, under state law, can’t be cut in on tips because they don’t have regular face-to-face contact with customers.

And, paying the waitstaff based on a predictable formula set by management also eliminates the front-of-house scramble to be assigned to the most lucrative shifts. Pay that’s based mainly on tips often promotes ugly bullying, favor currying and sexual harassment.

For owners, charging the higher prices that come with no-tipping is a way to blunt the impact of state minimum-wage hikes. For those who receive tips, the minimum wage rose from $5 an hour to $7.50 an hour last December, will rise to $8.70 an hour this Dec. 31, and will rise to $10 an hour by the end of 2018.

Overall, as a whole, we are pleased the way it’s going. [But] it’s not without hiccups.

Some owners says it wasn’t their employees, but customers, who revolted. Longtime Italian favorite I Trulli in the Flatiron District eliminated tipping in favor of a 20-percent “administrative fee” — equivalent to a mandatory, built-in gratuity — in November 2015. Last May, it switched back to a traditional tipping model.

“Our staff was happy. It just seemed like a very vocal minority of guests didn’t like it, especially our old regulars” who preferred tipping based on quality of service, says general manager George Hock.

Tom Colicchio saw a similar reception when he experimented with no-tipping at lunch at his flagship Craft starting in late 2015. After six months, he dropped it.

Colicchio said that while younger customers “were more open to no-tipping,” his older clientele “was still not ready” for higher menu prices and losing the freedom to tip based on the experience. And while the waitstaff were fine with no-tipping at lunch, they were “less enthusiastic about dinner,” with some fearing they’d make less than they did before.

The hospitality-included policy hasn’t been an issue at the new Union Square Cafe. Tables are tough to come by at any hour. Most customers seem to love not having to tip — and in fact, love being strongly dissuaded from doing so.

“The light-bulb moment is when they try to buy back their coats,” Sagaria says with a chuckle. “They’re told, ‘thank you, but hospitality is included.’ They’re like, ‘Wow, I never realized I was paying you to guard my coat.”