<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Kremmen:
Restaurants in the USA want to be able to advertise low prices and shame customers into paying extra in the form of tips, rather than paying their workers properly in the first place.
Unfortunately, instead of the US governments at various levels cracking down on this type of disgraceful attitude towards adding charges to advertised prices, they tend to perpetuate it themselves by having all manner of taxes and allowing those also to be added to bills.</font>
I sympathize with the frustration that Kremmen states here.
However, the restaurant owners may be simply taking advantage of a custom that is quite long-in-tooth. Tipping waiters and bartenders is traditional and continues to be widely practiced in the US (almost universally practiced) to the current day.
On the subject of other fees, I also agree that it is frustrating to get a price quote that is not a final price. This is easily solved.
Simply requesting a final price from the vendor will usually provide the solution.
On the other hand, some merchants and some people in government believe that by highlighting the actual cost of goods versus the fees, taxes, gratuities, etc.; the customer is more informed. While it may be an annoyance, it does underscore the costs of various components of a good or service.
I disagree that this practice reflects broadly on the civility of the US society. Certainly we are all traveled enough to recognize different ways of doing similar things. Individuals and governments in the US clearly handle many things in different ways than do individuals and governments in other places. Vive la difference.
If consumers in the US want our costs and totals to look like costs and totals in the EU, it would happen over the course of time.