The cheapest restaurants pay all of their staff minimum wage or higher

[Recursion]

You don't tip the people at McDonald's and Burger King. The entire shift is making at least $7.25 an hour (and, really, at least around here the hiring wage is rather higher than that; $10 or so). The places whose staff rely on tips already have a margin that a McDonald's manager could only dream of.

Running a restaurant is hard. And restaurants fail all the time. Requiring actual minimum wage for all wait staff might drive a few restaurants under, but if the Burger Kings of the world can do it, they can too. And if they can't, well, that's capitalism, and somebody else will open a restaurant there next week.

[Cleita]

1. Actually many of those places keep tip jars at the cash register.

None of the above pay $10 an hour. I do know that In 'n Out Burger here pays $10 an hour to start. You can't live on that and less in this area though without subsidized govt. help.

[Recursion]

3. jar tips can't count because they aren't reported per-shift

Well, I mean, in the most basic situations where whoever's at the till empties the jar at the end of the night, I guess so, but generally with the jar plan the tips are counted and distributed to the whole shift later; that case isn't allowed to sink the base pay below minimum wage.

[Bay Boy]

2. I would bet that a lot of waitstaff...

...would not want that to happen. They are getting much better than minimum wage when they add what
the restaurant pays them along with their current tips.