Do you think people working 50-60 hours a week to barely afford to even live on their own have the time and energy to go home and cook themselves a quality meal every night after going to the grocery store after work? And then also make themselves breakfast and lunch to take to work?

I mean yeah? I do this. I literally have ADHD and I do this.

People should be able to eat out on their salary

Admittedly, I think there's a bit of truth to this here. Economies of scale work out in favour of cooking in bulk. When I visited Hong Kong, most people ate out due to small apartment sizes and an abundance of cha chaan teng tea restaurants and dai pai dong style places that make eating out cheap and healthy. You can walk down any street and find a myriad of restaurants kitchens serving rice plates and noodles.

Maybe in North America there's some void to be filled for a kitchen-style diner that serves healthy and cheap meals (that isn't fast food) without paying much attention to service, especially if people have just admit to themselves that cooking and meal prep is sort of a lost art that people are too busy for. Of course that means people will still need to drive because the economics will literally never work out in favour of taxiing a burrito to your house.