> Most waiters, baristas & bartenders certainly wouldn’t want to earn only slightly more than fast food workers even if the average wage goes up.

I don’t understand this argument. What I’m saying is to just take what the earnings were with wage + tips, and make it just wage. Literally not changing the total take home pay (I guess people don’t report tips though?)

Unfortunately I doubt this would be a steady state solution. If restaurants were to implement this suggestion, they'd probably undercut each other's prices by significantly lowering the wage of their staff.

Business owners who don't pay their workers satisfactory wages will find nobody to work for them, lose customers and have to close. It's happening rapidly, worldwide, right now.

Certainly there's a lower bound at which a business owner won't be able to staff their restaurant, but that lower bound isn't one penny less than the status quo. Rather, there's some shitty middle region, where employees are generally dissatisfied with their wages but not desperate enough to leave.

The world is changing more rapidly than ever and the attitudes of young workers (typically found in the hospitality industry) is completely different than just 10 years ago. Even the concept "desperate enough to leave" is alien: If a better opportunity shows up you switch, there is no question about it. Just like you yourself will pump gas at a station with a better price than the one you pumped gas in yesterday.

There is absolutely no reward for sticking with an employer in this industry, if another employer has a better offer it's goodbye.