As a tipped employee, I can tell you this is not exactly the real reason. There are at least two more important: - Historically (less so now), tips are a tax do

As a tipped employee, I can tell you this is not exactly the real reason. There are at least two more important: - Historically (less so now), tips are a tax dodge - they often aren't reported, or greatly under-reported. - Tips are less egalitarian than wages would be. Nominally, front of house and back of house have similar wages, but front of house gets far more tips. Even in the normal shared-tip-pool model this is true. Changing this would mean making explicit and obvious things that were previously implicit and looked past: Front-of-house would need/want/demand a far higher hourly wage than what the back-of-house workers would/cloud, and everybody would have to report ALL their income for taxes. There is also the problem that unprofessional service staff might not try as hard to please the customers, though maybe those get filtered out over time.