I feel like that is more of a side effect of delivery apps getting popular.
But in my opinion if your restaurant cant afford to pay $15 an hour, which still isn't really a livable wage in NYC, then maybe it shouldn't be operating.
It has already gone up to compensate. I still go out and eat for a few dollars more and people get paid better.
Go explore some rent prices in NYC and you will understand why it is necessary.
Remember, making food at home in a nice kitchen is a luxury.
I'm lucky that I'm in a place now where I can make nice food from relatively raw ingredients and much of that stems from my (relative) wealth.
I am from Europe and I always find it confusing to deal with prices in the US. First the prices don't contain the taxes, and then I have to add tipping. The price of a meal shows up on the menu as 9.95 and I end up paying around 15.
At some point, it morphed into passing part of the service staff wage to the customer and pretending this was somehow a good thing. It's so entrenched in culture now people just assume even for crap service you tip. At the end of the day, it really gives management an easy out by putting the customer against the service staff for labor rates while the restaurant decides fixed meal costs.
I almost always tip 20%. I even tip 15% for poor service--I figure that there are likely things going on in the kitchen or with other service staff that I'm not aware of, and that tips are often split between everyone so the my tip for poor service is help the other employees busing tables too. My wife often tips 25% or more.
Why can't restaurants charge us more, pay their staff better, and then the staff could treat us like we were customers of the restaurant and not expecting us to directly compensate them. For the answer, see my last paragraph.
Even for pick up service, say when I place a to-go order for cup of coffee with my Starbucks app and then pick it up from a bin on the counter myself, the app prompts for a tip. At other server-less restaurants, I'm forced to make the choice of tip when I place the order.
So why the culture around tipping here in the US. I believe that it's related to why movie theaters can charge so much for popcorn. From Stanford.edu:
"The findings empirically answer the age-old question of whether it's better to charge more for a primary product (in this case, the movie ticket) or a secondary product (the popcorn). Putting the premium on the "frill" items, it turns out, indeed opens up the possibility for price-sensitive people to see films. That means more customers coming to theaters in general, and a nice profit from those who are willing to fork it over for the Gummy Bears." [1]
In the case of tipping in restaurants, the restaurants are naturally willing to charge more to customers like myself and my wife for the wine+food+service while still making a profit from price sensitive customers that pay less by tipping less for the same wine+food+service.
[1] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-does-movie-popcorn...
Restaurants have long been subsidized by workers stuck in a position where they will work for _any_ wage. As that changes, which is demonstrably a good thing, so will prices rise to match costs.
It’s similar to the way Uber/Lyft prices will need to rise when their subsidies change terms.
Having some one else prepare and serve you food is a luxury, they deserve to be paid for their work.
If you disagree then do the work yourself no one is stopping you.