"Customers looked at the higher prices ($25 for the chicken instead of $21, $17 cocktails instead of $14) and ordered fewer and less-expensive items, even though they were paying exactly the same amount for them by tacking 20% onto the check at meal’s end. It’s just economic reality: lower posted prices with added fees will encourage people to spend more money because the posted price is what gets stuck in their heads."
Okay, so make all added fees, including tips, illegal. All prices everywhere include sales tax. All meal prices include gratuity, or everyone in the restaurant is paid a tipless wage. Let people get over the sticker shock.
Increasingly, everything in this country has three prices: the sticker price, the price with sales tax, and a third price which depending on the industry is either the price with gratuity, the price with fees, or the subscription price.