There are restaurants out there that have started doing that as an experiment and telling customers on the menu and signage that they do not accept tips - they are paying their staff a living wage. Their prices went up, for obvious reasons.
Relevant excerpts:
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"Before the pandemic, some restaurant owners were experimenting with no-tipping approaches, like adding gratuity surcharges to their bills, and others, including Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group starting in 2015, raised
wagesby raising menu prices. The models were easier to try for higher-end restaurants, whose customers weren’t put off by higher prices and who might even be attracted to establishments that played up their worker-friendly policies, according to Michael Lynn, who studies consumer behavior and tipping.
Dozens of other restaurants moved to eliminate tips around the same time as Mr. Meyer did. But in the ensuing years, some began to quietly reverse, finding that it was difficult to compete against neighboring restaurants with lower prices and tough to recruit talented staff who could make more money going elsewhere.
“The numbers don’t lie,” said David Stockwell, owner of the Italian bistro Faun in Brooklyn, which opened tip-free in 2016 and then reintroduced tipping in 2018. “We thought it was the rare instance when a good business decision lined up with a good ethical decision. But we realized all the problems that came with the model started rearing their heads in our business.”
In July, Mr. Meyer said he was
reinstating tips at all his Union Square Hospitality Group businesses because he couldn’t deny his workers extra cash in a time of crisis. He added, though, that he was still committed to the eventual elimination of tipping.
Some restaurant owners, pointing to Mr. Meyer’s example, say the pandemic has introduced new obstacles into the no-tipping movement’s path. But others say this moment presents an opportunity to rethink old industry practices.
“Demand is dead right now anyway,” said Mr. Lynn, a professor of consumer behavior at Cornell. “If you’re going to rebuild, let’s rebuild on a sounder model.”"
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"A national analysis of payments made through the app Square, by Mr. Lynn, showed that the average customer is tipping 1 to 2 percent less on dine-in orders than they did pre-pandemic — but with overall demand for dine-in services down substantially, it’s likely that workers are taking less money home in tips per shift, he said."
(the tip part was true at least- $10-20 bucks was a good day. )