Aren't you just making this happen with tipping?

I am from Europe and I always find it confusing to deal with prices in the US. First the prices don't contain the taxes, and then I have to add tipping. The price of a meal shows up on the menu as 9.95 and I end up paying around 15.

Please still tip the staff making $15/hr. It's still the custom at most locations.

The original point of a tip was to optionaly pay when service goes over and above what they need to do.

At some point, it morphed into passing part of the service staff wage to the customer and pretending this was somehow a good thing. It's so entrenched in culture now people just assume even for crap service you tip. At the end of the day, it really gives management an easy out by putting the customer against the service staff for labor rates while the restaurant decides fixed meal costs.

Its gotten ridiculous, I just wish that we could move away from the tipping culture that we have here in the US.

I almost always tip 20%. I even tip 15% for poor service--I figure that there are likely things going on in the kitchen or with other service staff that I'm not aware of, and that tips are often split between everyone so the my tip for poor service is help the other employees busing tables too. My wife often tips 25% or more.

Why can't restaurants charge us more, pay their staff better, and then the staff could treat us like we were customers of the restaurant and not expecting us to directly compensate them. For the answer, see my last paragraph.

Even for pick up service, say when I place a to-go order for cup of coffee with my Starbucks app and then pick it up from a bin on the counter myself, the app prompts for a tip. At other server-less restaurants, I'm forced to make the choice of tip when I place the order.

So why the culture around tipping here in the US. I believe that it's related to why movie theaters can charge so much for popcorn. From Stanford.edu:

"The findings empirically answer the age-old question of whether it's better to charge more for a primary product (in this case, the movie ticket) or a secondary product (the popcorn). Putting the premium on the "frill" items, it turns out, indeed opens up the possibility for price-sensitive people to see films. That means more customers coming to theaters in general, and a nice profit from those who are willing to fork it over for the Gummy Bears." [1]

In the case of tipping in restaurants, the restaurants are naturally willing to charge more to customers like myself and my wife for the wine+food+service while still making a profit from price sensitive customers that pay less by tipping less for the same wine+food+service.

[1] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-does-movie-popcorn...

Its absolutely ridiculous. Its now to a point where 15-18% is expected even for bad service, and 25% and up for good services. There is no way I'm paying an extra quarter of my bill in tips because the restaurant owner is too cheap and offloads the staff costs directly to their customers.

Then don't eat at those places. That's a valid option - but don't stiff your wait staff.

Yes, absolutely, and eventually.

Restaurants have long been subsidized by workers stuck in a position where they will work for _any_ wage. As that changes, which is demonstrably a good thing, so will prices rise to match costs.

It’s similar to the way Uber/Lyft prices will need to rise when their subsidies change terms.

Takeout and dining in? Yes, absolutely.

It has already gone up to compensate. I still go out and eat for a few dollars more and people get paid better.

Go explore some rent prices in NYC and you will understand why it is necessary.

Sure and that's fine for you and me, but it also is more cost on those who are likely making $15/hr and get a lot of their meals out and about - which means their cost just rose with their paycheck.

Remember, making food at home in a nice kitchen is a luxury.

I think you have this backwards, paying others to make food for you is a luxury. If you can afford a $50 microwave that you can then use to make meals that cost less than a dollar, that is the standard. You don't need a 'nice kitchen' to eat at home. Not to mention, their wage is double the $7.25 national minimum wage, but food prices at these restaurants do not double in response, so they still come out ahead.

You can't live off of microwave noodles and instant rice. Cooking meals not only requires a way to heat food but ingredients which go bad quickly (eg time to go grocery shopping) and time to assemble and cook ingredients (dried beans are cheap but take 12 hours, instant beans still take 10 minutes or so). Then remember food has to be palatable, which is an additional challenge with kids.

I'm lucky that I'm in a place now where I can make nice food from relatively raw ingredients and much of that stems from my (relative) wealth.

Yes. There are many cheap food options in NYC and if they need to charge a bit more to pay a fair wage then so be it. Providing even cheaper prepared food off the backs of staff not getting paid a living wage is not ok.

Restaurants != Food

Having some one else prepare and serve you food is a luxury, they deserve to be paid for their work.

If you disagree then do the work yourself no one is stopping you.