> For a restaurant to pay a server what they make now ($150-$300/night tips), their labor cost would be through the roof and they would have to raise the price of the food.
Is that every night or just weekends? Because everyone I've known that has cleared that kind of money has only done so on weekends (Friday/Saturday), and works at higher end or very popular restaurants. I agree that an extra $15-$30/hr would be an insane increase, but if that is spread out over the other 5 days a week then this is much closer to a $3-$6/hr increase. Large, but not obtuse considering a server is probably serving many meals an hour on average. I wouldn't expect food prices to go up very much to cover such a change. As a customer I'd be far happier with that version too. To be clear, I'm against abolishing tips, I just don't think it should be the social expectation for an average establishment.
Is that every night or just weekends? Because everyone I've known that has cleared that kind of money has only done so on weekends (Friday/Saturday), and works at higher end or very popular restaurants. I agree that an extra $15-$30/hr would be an insane increase, but if that is spread out over the other 5 days a week then this is much closer to a $3-$6/hr increase. Large, but not obtuse considering a server is probably serving many meals an hour on average. I wouldn't expect food prices to go up very much to cover such a change. As a customer I'd be far happier with that version too. To be clear, I'm against abolishing tips, I just don't think it should be the social expectation for an average establishment.