I'm not sure there's causation there but definitely correlation. Personally restaurants saved me from the streets and I've seen people struggling with addiction use the job to survive. I'm struggling in this thread because I'm an anarchist and working under the coercion of capitalism is evil in all jobs. But I've never known anything else and I have a love/hate relationship with the hospitality business. The current model sucks, i can't argue with that but I've seen people try a bunch of new systems and I've worked at a few of those and dined at others and well... they aren't there anymore. I was set to start my own spot right before pandemic and I thought employee owned was the answer but now I'm seeing how that can be just another ploy at exploiting the proletariat. Those hopes puts mine are now gone because i don't know the answer. I'm still coerced to work in the industry because it's what I've dedicated my life to and I'm not willing to give it up, but i am doing FOH now and i hate it but where i live, unless i take a lead position in a kitchen which is more than my family will allow me to do i can't afford to work BOH where i want to be. But i do see people who may or may not hate the work lying about experience to get in the door and that is definitely the coercion of capitalism and not the fault of the work. And yes some of those people get burnt out and leave but others start to rise through the ranks because passion shows in the product. It is known kitchen wages suck, and the tip situation isn't new. In reference to my OP I'm not speaking of the rotating door people coerced by capitalism, I'm speaking of those who make this choice, even under capitalism. So those people commenting against my previous statements, rage against capitalism, rage against tip culture, but for people into cooking and food this is what we have now. And in conclusion (sorry for the wall of text) working in the kitchen is hard work for shitty pay, FOH is physically easy but whoring yourself out comes with another cost and until they find another way to handsomely reward us workers the industry is going to die. Or the revolution will come first...VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!