In some places, diners work for their dinner

San Francisco’s eateries can’t afford waiters, so customers serve

SAN FRANCISCO — Souvla, a Greek restaurant with a devoted following, serves spit-fired meat two ways: in a photogenic sandwich, or on a photogenic salad, either available with a glass of Greek wine. The garnishes are thoughtful: pea shoots, harissa spiked yogurt, mizithra cheese.

The small menu is so appealing and the place itself so charming that you almost forget, as a diner, that you have to do much of the work of dining out yourself. You scout your own table. You fetch and fill your own water glass. And if you’d like another glass of wine, you go back to the counter.

Runners will bring your order to the table, but there are no servers to wait on you here, or at the two other San Francisco locations that Souvla has added — or, increasingly, at other popular restaurants that have opened in the last two years.

Restaurateurs who say they can no longer find or afford servers are figuring out how to do without them. And so in this city of staggering wealth, you can eat like a gourmand, with real stemware and ceramic plates. But first you’ll have to go get your own silverware.

“Souvla was the beginning of this whole new onslaught of things that in every single way look like a full-service restaurant — nice décor; good wine list; tasty, healthy foods. It’s much more chef- and ingredient driven,” said Gwyneth Borden, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. “But it’s ‘take a number and go to a table.’ ”

On July 1, the minimum wage in San Francisco will hit $15 an hour, following incremental raises from $10.74 in 2014. The city also requires employers with at least 20 workers to pay health care costs beyond the mandates of the Affordable Care Act, in addition to paid sick leave and parental leave.

Despite those benefits, many workers say they can’t afford to live there, or to stay in the industry. And partly as a result of those benefits, restaurateurs say they can’t afford the workers who remain.

For restaurateurs, counter service makes fine dining profitable. To economists, it makes sense. David Neumark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, who has studied the minimum wage, recalled a trip to Norway where nearly every restaurant he and his wife visited relied on counter service.

“I said, ‘Well, duh,’ ” Neumark said. “It was so clear there.” Norway has among the highest wages in the world. “Economic history is filled with ways that we have figured out how to do things with fewer workers, and ultimately that’s what makes us richer,” he said.