[inside??]

I worked in a restaurant for about 15 years so I can shed light on a lot of things.

Autograts are there to limit the variance. You can compare it to P*ker. You can probably make more $$ by not autograting but you won't have the wicked swings in income. Sort of like how you can't remember the 20 P*ker hands you win but vividly remember the 2 outer on the river that burned you. It is a sense tilt prevention. It is much better to get 15% on 4 large tables than 20%, 20%, 20% stiff.

The restaurant I worked in didn't automatically grat but you could request it. Depends if you want to roll the dice on that table. Unfortunately racial profiling is a big factor in that decision since we have a large Hispanic community which is not accustomed to this tradition.

Waiters don't usually work 40 hours a week. Not that they don't want to but often because of the many people needed to cover Fri/Sat you need to split up the rest of the slower days to keep people. 30 hours is what I would say is near the norm.

I think that tipping also keeps menu prices down. You probably would pay 15% more per entree if the restaurant was required to pay a higher base wage. The tipping element also keeps the waitstaff from being indifferent to the service you receive.