This isn’t every restaurant though. My ex-wife used to be a waitress and if there was a pooled tip jar she immediately began looking for a different place without one. Drivers, otoh, usually make at least minimum wage but then they need that money for gas as well.
If your wife is broadly viewed as attractive and working in the half of employees at her business which interacts with the public she may benefit more than average from tips which provides a poor justification for making a decision if the broad welfare of all employees in tipped industries is concerned.
In any situation where the following benefits accrue
A: 80
B: 80
C: 80
A would logically prefer a situation where the following benefits accrue even with total outcomes being on average worse because A is logically and understandably primarily interested in their own well being.
A: 100
B: 50
C: 50
Tips are better for the employer because they fan advertise a price n where the customer will be expected to pay n+10-25%
Pooled tips are better on average because the extra tax the employer is able to levy accrues to everyone. Non pooled tips are better for attractive people or those who are much more competent than their peers.
No tips and actually paying employees what they are worth is even better.
>No tips and actually paying employees what they are worth is even better.
There's plenty of resistance from the servers themselves, though. Whenever this subject comes up on kitchen-pros related subreddits, IIRC this just came up not too long ago (/r/kitchenconfidentials, I think?) servers don't want to take straight wages over tips. I always think qualifiers like "better" doesn't mean better for everyone. Some servers make so much in tips, or think they can exceed their straight wages in tips, that they believe the current system favors them. Much like the majority of SWEs on HN are vociferously resistant to the idea of a SWE union.
Drivers, who don't work in close proximity to each other, may have it differently, of course.