Just to clarify that all tipping in the US works like this. The rest of western countries pays a fair wage and then tip is a bonus the waiter gets to keep (or shares with other staff in some contexts), but it's not expected to be part of pay.
But I'm guessing that in either job, you didn't have to take each individual tip to your manager so they could review it and decide how much to take for the house.
So what, it raises the waiter minimum wage from $2.50 an hour to $7.25 an hour? When the average waiter is making / expecting $10-$50+ an hour, it's still the situation OP describes where tips make up the vast majority of their pay. There are restaurants that do the higher prices no tips thing, but I am not aware of any states where you can show up at a random restaurant and get paid $30 an hour to wait tables?
Minimum wage in Oregon is $11.25/hr with no special considerations for wait staff. Tips are always on top of the hourly wage and do not subsidize the wage paid by the restaurant.
