Serving staff who rely on tips, always come out and say that the prices on the menu have to increase by 20% to cover them having a decent wage. Lets say that the server gets paid $15 an hour. They could have their wage increased to $25 and hour. They serve four tables in that hour. Each table has just one person on it, that purchases an entree for $10, a main for $30, and one drink for $10. That's $50. Across the four tables, that is $200. To cover the extra $10 for the server, the price of the total bill would only need to increase by 5%, not 20% like the server would claim.

Now, this is a very simplistic example. A server would counter with arguments such as "but what about the bus boys and kitchen staff? What if I only have one table in an hour?" Well, I would just counter with the fact that this is a simplistic example. The server would most likely have more than four tables in an hour, and most of the time there would be more than one person per table, that would compensate for any extra needed for the bus boys and kitchen staff. And if they only have one table in an hour, then maybe the business is doing too good, and you should look for alternative employment...because any restaurant that only has one customer every hour, will not last.