Not quite. Yes, that waiter/waitress is making 150.00 for that shift but is being paid less than minimum wage (as little as $2.13 an hour per federal regulations) to do it and then taxed on thier total sales (something like 8-10% of their total sales is considered tip income and taxed which comes out of that little $2.13/hr paycheck). Also, servers are audited pretty regularly which gives the IRS a whole new chance to screw them. To add all this up, on a busy night in a good place, they can make decent tips, if it's slow, they're still expected to be there cleaning, etc. for that same $2.13/hr while the back of the house is still getting their $15-20 an hour.