Restaurants have a smaller margin than convenience stores, and are more than happy to send employees home if service is slow - grocers, not so much based on how labor is spread out due to products arriving ~ you can’t be guaranteed 30+ hrs a week in a restaurant, but you can be at Trader Joe’s.

And they do have an incentive: with I•82 on the horizon there isn’t a smart restaurant that doesn’t want to get ahead of the curve now vs five years down the road.

Service fees for DC are mostly pandemic related; however, California/ Wash St/ Nevada.. have been utilizing this practice for quite a while, thus I don’t see too many DC establishments getting rid of it - especially if this is how they are making their ends meet.

Ultimately, yes, DC voters put this into motion, because they didn’t understand the tip-credit.