Shake Shack is about to get more expensive

Shake Shack is raising menu prices in January.

It will be the third time in 16 months that the company has hiked prices on its burgers, fries, milkshakes, and other items.

Prices will increase by a low single-digit percentage, Shake Shack CEO Randy Garutti said on an earnings call last week.

The company raised prices by 3% in September 2014, and again by another 3% last January.

Buzzfeed News reporter Venessa Wong broke news of the latest increases.

Shake Shack is pushing up menu prices to help offset growing labor costs, Garutti said.

"We don't expect [the price increase] to fully offset - the labor pressures that we're going to see," he said. "We expect it to partially offset and to help, but certainly not offset completely what we're going to see with labor in this country over the [next] two, three, four years."

The burger chain pays employees $10 an hour on average, which is nearly $2 more than the fast-food industry average, according to Glassdoor.

Shake Shack recently raised it's minimum hourly wage to $12 for workers in Washington, DC, which is $1.50 over the city's minimum wage.

"We're willing to take a little bit of a hit on the labor line to get the right people, pay people right," Garutti said.

Shake Shack's labor expenses are equal to almost a quarter of its sales.