Funny that you said that, I recently (month ago) watched a documentary on Seattle's minimum wage increase, I walked away feeling more negative about it then anything.
The restaurant industry is actually hurting, along with the low wage earners (even at $15.00) people are worse off. The issue was the average consumer isn't going to pay $23.00 for a side salad, because of the populated growth in Seattle (amazon) rents for apartments, and commercial shot up, restaurants profit margins went down, then the wage increase created a microcosm of sorts, long time dependable workers even at $15 an hour could not afford to live within viable commuting distance, public transportation went up or just isn't available to where they moved to, there hours were cut due to wage increase, so they left, the ones that were able to figure out something and stay are now under employed due to the same issues stated above with rents, hours cut, then there's the younger worker which makes a small egg from the higher wage, has no rent to cover (student, still lives at home, lives with multiple roommates..ect…) wont cover any shifts if someone else calls out, so the full circle is the restaurant suffers some more.