Kind of inflammatory way to phrase it[2], but to save you the time: restaurants are shifting to models that use less waitstaff, closer to fast casual. In the first example, they say that runners bring the food but you have to fetch your own water and go to a counter for each wine glass; sadly, it was ambiguous on how orders are placed.

This is kind of to-be-expected as the wage/cost-of-living ratio dips too low so that lower-labor models are preferred. [1].

My peeve about these kinds of models is the ambiguity of the tipping situation; it's obviously not full service, but it's not zero either. And places like Super Duper are zero service (you stand in line, fetch your order, and bus your table) but still guilt you into tipping. I don't know the amount for "this satisfies the standard expectation".

[1] If you automatically say "lol pay them more", it's not that simple: higher prices and you'll scare off too many customers -- into fast casual and home cooking -- to cover overhead. Take lower profits and it may not pay enough to be worth the investment.

[2] Edit: original version was something like “... putting diners to work”.