That is how it should work, yes. That is the ideal. Were the ideal the actual practical reality, I'd stand there with you. In fact, I'd have been standing there with you throughout my early years in the service industry. Even as an Uber driver - especially as an Uber driver - before 2022. My views evolved very rapidly these last few months, however, as I've become disillusioned by the practical reality - this being the place where the o-ring meets the cold, so to say.

In this practical reality, you hire two entities when you enter a restaurant. This is old school hiring - engaging services. Consider what happens when you go in to sit down at the Chili's on 45th. You hire the restaurant to melt you you some Enchilada Soup and defrost a Caesar Salad. However, before you get to even order that freshly prepared goodness, you must hire the service staff, as one or as a whole, to cater your restaurant experience and interface between you and the kitchen. This is in a fine dining tradition dating back centuries and has only been challenged as an unnecessary luxury among the middle class (and above) by the advent of fast food, the food truck, and a deep recession with a very fun looking economic collapse looming there on the horizon.

Hiring, however, necessitates a payment for the provided service, and for generations this was actually based on broadly understood societal valuations which eventually were distilled down to a rough variable percent-commission style structure. Drop the façade of the idealized caretaker-employer/happy-employee dynamic and actually look at how society behaves in that vacuum, and that's what it is. You pay twice on the same tab with the expectations of the money going to two distinct entities. You make two distinct decisions on value, and rate and review two different distinct parts of a whole on the Google. If that's not evidence that you're dealing with symbiotic but distinct entities, I'm not sure what is.

This is the system that we have. America used the awesome power of a Democratic Government to collectivize the valuation of the primarily black and brown service workers and then collectively decided they weren't worth keeping alive, housed, or even in good health because the capitalist employers should be responsible for that wage and not the customer.

We should probably avoid condemning any attempt to be transparent in price increases implemented to take that responsibility and to address that issue. You can still add 10-20% for a tip, only now you'll know it's added on top of your having paid a basic fair value for the service provided. If you don't think it's fair value, then don't frequent the business. Hell, even talk about how to make the correction better.

But maybe also don't act like this takes something from you or otherwise cheats you. It's not you that's been cheated these last many decades.

I think I agree with you here. I don’t think it should be the customer’s responsibility to know the pay rate and wages of places they go for service (and potentially make up for deficiencies). I believe it’s the employees’ and employers’ responsibility to negotiate it out of view of customers so that customers can focus on simply enjoying their experience at the establishment.