I would explicitly patronize a cafe with a counter I had to walk up to if it had a sign up explaining that they banned tips and offered 30-50% over min-wage but nobody applies. I would chalk it up to entitled service workers who really should be converting material taken out of the ground into something useful instead of waiting tables.

We won't see any real increases to our standards of living in the US again until we bring electric prices down and we start converting more things in the ground into things which make our lives even easier. Climate Change™ has been a wonderous success in slowing down Western inertia, though don't mistake my sentiment as faith in the current administration (lol).

So what, America is stuck and nothing can ever change from now until eternity?

Did they try paying fair wages? Because in your scenario, they were obviously paid less than they were before.

There’s a huge gap between a fair wage for some untrained employee that just has to carry around food without stumbling over their own feet; and the amount of $$$ some cute young blonde waitress goes home with after every shift.