“....stiffs the waiter or waitress he is actually costing him/her money since their salary is $2.05 per hour.”
$2.05 is well below minimum wage. The restaurant owner is stiffing the waiters before a customer ever walks in the door. The customer isn’t obligated to fix the owner’s greed. It is crazy that restaurants are given some kind of legal exception to minimum wage laws to screw their employees. Unfortunately too, the idea of tipping to reward excellence has degenerated into some kind of sense of entitlement, regardless of performance. I actually do avoid any place that adds a mandatory gratuity to my bill - where is the incentive for the waiter to excel if his tip is already guaranteed? It’s a bit like socialism.
“The restaurant owner is stiffing the waiters before a customer ever walks in the door”
Exactly. It’s not the job of the customer to deal with the employer.
And don’t give me the garbage that only rich people could afford to eat out.