If you want a real look at things, I'd suggest looking at servers discussing places that try to eliminate tipping. When tipping is discussed generally, it's often discussed like in this article - talking about how restaurants are only paying $2.13 an hour, how this or that customer didn't tipped or tipped almost nothing, how on this particular night they made almost nothing, etc.
But if you talk about getting rid of tipping and replacing it with a living age? Look at the comments from this Reddit discussion some years ago (so the numbers are even higher when you factor in inflation) discussing Joe's Crab Shack's interest in getting rid of tips[1]:
> But if you are doing good volume and the prices arent insanely cheap I cant see how youre only making $15 an hour. Are you in a poor section of town where people dont have much money? Do you get a lot of foreign tourists as clientele? I mean, $15 an hour I can make while asleep. But Im in Philly. Prices arent insane usually but they arent cheap. Plus its one of the best tipping cities in the country. Personally I wont take a shift if Im not confident Ill make at least $20 an hour. For me its not worth my time.
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> This may or may not be close to the industry standard, but my last restaurant, I probably made somewhere around $25/hr (tips + wage). Restaurant before that was way more high volume, and even though we didn't really get paid an hourly wage, I would guess we made about $30/hr or so. On good nights and the bartenders? Probably even more.
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> I was bored out of my mind all 6 hours of my shift tonight and made $14X, so call it $150, aka $25 an hour. Oh, and that's with a stiff on $120, and a $6 on $94
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> Because serving tables isn't a job anyone would do for $7.75 an hour. It's not an easy job to excel at. I'll stay making my $25 an hour. Thanks.
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> This is what people outside of the industry don't seem to get. Strong servers arn't going to stick around for anything less than $20 an hour.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromYourServer/comments/4iuy2q...