Tip Not Included Eric Levine - Restaurateur

Imagine you're cleaning up your ice cream shop and in walk in two Secret Service men to surveil the joint. The year is 2015 and Hillary Clinton is running for President. The former Secretary of State is known to be a chocolate ice cream lover and heard about your establishment. She does in fact show up and not only orders ice cream for herself, but picks up the tab for other patrons, too.
This scene really happened to Mikey Cole, the founder of Mikey Likes It Ice Cream, the world’s first pop culture inspired ultra-premium ice cream brand. With three NYC locations (East Village, Harlem and Midtown), it’s where homemade, artisan and all-natural ice creams are created.
Hear this tale and more, on the latest episode of Tip Not Included as the irreverent Eric Levine is back behind the mic after too-long of an absence and welcomes, Mikey as his first post-Covid guest.
Mikey relays that memorable meeting with HRC (where among other topics they spoke about prison reform) plus, recalls how he found his calling in making ice cream when he realized how it helped him get through a particularly difficult chapter in his life. He knew that if the cathartic effects of ice cream making could help him, it could surely help others. And thereafter Mikey Likes It Ice Cream was born.
With his traditional milkman white uniform – accented with royal blue in a nod to NYC sports teams – Mikey believes that with all its ups and downs, life is like a roller coaster. And for Mikey, the important thing is, you don’t get off.
Before his chat with Mikey begins, Eric does what Eric does best. He gives his opinion. This time, he goes back to the show’s roots and questions why a server would not be able to tip a cook or a dishwasher after walking home with $350 a night, with others making minimum wage, while the dishwasher is wearing a black garbage bag over his head like a uniform. Do you know why? Would you like to weigh in? If so, reach out to Eric on Instagram: @tipnotincludedpodcast or Twitter: @tipnotincl or Email: eric@tipnotincluded.com.
You can follow Mikey on Facebook & Instagram: @mikeylikesiticecream and on Twitter: @mikeylikesitny. Visit: mikeylikesiticecream.com

Let's remember that a movement was fostered thanks to what happened in the hospitality industry.
 
Back in 1960, four young black men, who became known as "The Greensboro Four" had the courage to sit at a "Whites Only" lunch counter at a Woolworths in Greensboro, North Carolina. Woolworths refused to serve them so by the third day, hundreds showed up. Then it turned into thousands. Then it turned into a movement. A catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement which swept the United States.
 
Sound familiar?
 
While realization came that segregation was wrong, as soon as it hurt the economics of a business, things changed. Because it always starts in restaurants and retail since that's the common denominator among races and classes. It doesn't matter where you live or what you wear, but essentially everyone can afford a double macchiato at Starbucks.
 
On this episode of "Tip Not Included", Host Eric Levine is back to address the social unrest taking place today and questions "Where's The Beef"? while asking "What's Your Beef"? 
 
Well, the beef has been growing for years, with windows, souls and backs being broken in the process. The beef is being shouted loud and clear across the country on racial inequality and racial injustice. Especially in the restaurant industry where its workers (along with convicts) make 30% below minimum wage. 
 
Hey, it's not called "slave wages" for nothing.
 
So in this time where our society is being unmasked while we're being asked to don one, it's worthwhile asking how stunned you are -- without a stun gun -- that people are taking to the streets to voice their beef. Blacks, Whites, Asian, Latinos. Even vegans.
 
Contact Eric at: erictipnotincluded@gmail.com

Guess what's the only industry in the world - besides the restaurant industry - where people make below the minimum wage? The incarcerated! We're talking prisoners here who have steady work and no nasty customers sending back their orders.
 
Then why the restaurant industry? Where 40% of the employees are single Moms & Dads! There's no 401K in the restaurant industry. No IRA. Do you even know what they are? Had you had them, your money could have been invested in the market and have been given returns. You could have made a few extra thousand bucks. Legally. For doing nothing but just investing. 
 
Take our advice and go into a brokerage house or your local bank and open up a Roth IRA which will give you tax free deductions and growth. Especially if you have young kids. You'll start saving and earning and come out with a wad of money at the end of the decade. Point is, you have to start planning ahead!  Remember that money equals freedom. Try liquidating that shoe collection. You don't have to buy Bobbie Brown. That Maybelline lipstick is good enough. You're going to kiss it goodbye anyway. Invest that money so you can dance on the street and not on a pole.  


You'll feel better about controlling your destiny when you start controlling your money.
 
And while we're on the subject of destiny, take a lesson from those that wrote their own, by making comebacks. Henry Ford's first company went bankrupt and his second ended in disaster. Disney's first company went bankrupt too and faced some lean years before his eventual success. Sly Stallone was once homeless living on the floor at the Port Authority bus terminal and even sold his dog for a little cash to survive! And what about Oprah who was told she was unfit for television news?
 
They all have comeback stories. What's yours?
 
Contact Eric at: erictipnotincluded@gmail.com
 

The 25 wealthiest families control $1.4 trillion. And count 10 seconds and Sam Walton just made $23,000! So who's really self made? Think about it. Some are given a pittance of yeast to make a loaf of bread, but are clever enough to make enough bread for a carb-fest to feed the entire population of Palm Beach, Florida (hey, weather's crappy in NYC now so our mind wanders south). Then, some are given a lot of yeast and can't even find their way into the kitchen. And how about those given neither yeast nor a rolling pin?
 
It's that last group that especially needs to be mindful of when to ask for a raise in their minimum wage jobs. Problem is, there's never really a good time. Sad part is that many middle managers are known to have gone up to 7 years without a raise. What does that do to someone's psyche? And what do they tell their families?
 
Times like that where one has to re-evaluate and perhaps switch gears. That's what Jahred Haynes did. 
 
A career restaurateur, Jahred was a lifelong baseball player ever since he was a kid growing up in the Bronx. His wife tired of him screaming at the TV during games so she signed him up for umpire school in Florida. Armed with courage, confidence (and his cup!), he left his job supervising some 70 employees in a food chain outlet to pursue his dream.
 
On this episode of Tip Not Included, Host Eric Levine welcomes Jahred to the program to chat about his journey to his field of dreams, and more.
 
Contract Eric at: erictipnotincluded@gmail.com

So Starbucks is expanding its empire to place more of its trendy coffee shops in underserved (euphemism for "poor") neighborhoods under the ruse of creating more jobs. They plan to open or remodel 85 stores by 2025 in rural and urban communities, each complete with common event space.  Community groups will even get in the game to conduct training programs for employees, too. 
 
As the SNL "Church Lady" would say "Now isn't that special"?!
 
The execs may say they're building their temples of overpriced joe for altruistic reasons. But wait. It's as if they're wanting to move one "people" off one addiction and on to another -- crack to caffeine. And how are the folk to get the money to pay for a double mocha frappuccino? 
 
Nobody seems to be asking that question plus others like whether poor folks need a $5 cup of coffee to begin with. And what's going to happen to the local bodegas and coffee shops and diners -- traditional neighborhood gathering points being gentrified in the name of profits and masked under the umbrella of "doing good". 
 
Don't let them fool you. Green is the color of the day here. Of Starbucks aprons, un-roasted beans, of envy and of course, money!
 
And speaking of green, say you save $20 a day over 40 years at 10% return on the market -- you've now saved $3,758,000. That's a lot of coffee pissed away in unkept Starbucks toilets.
 
Listen to Host Eric Levine opine on this Starbucks travesty plus hair-based discrimination and more.
 
Reach Eric at: eric@tipnotincluded.com

The bathroom attendant at the strip club makes $15 an hour wiping jizz off your pants but the guy serving chicken nuggets to your kids gets less than minimum wage.
 
Gee whiz. Or maybe, jizz whiz!
 
And those seated nail salon ladies make minimum cleaning the shmutz underneath well heeled clientele's toe nails but the kid busting his ass serving drunk frat boys at at Friday's doesn't. What gives?
 
Despite the unfairness, servers have dreams. And dreams do come true. Like those of Omar the Comedian, who joins Host Eric Levine on this episode of Tip Not Included.
 
Omar Thompson aka Omar the Comedian, and long-time Levine friend, saw comedy as a "high" from an early age. He's been at it for 16 years with some exciting projects in the works.
 
Yes he has talent, but he also has a bad-ass wife who supports his habit. She's a teacher, mother to their young daughter - and one on the way, and keeps the house working. A house with 6 bedrooms and an in-ground heated pool. Not bad for someone who grew up in the projects.
 
As a former server, Omar knows the importance of tipping. He also knows that treating the wait staff well will get nice things said about you to patrons and gig bookers.
 
Hear the conversation between Omar & Eric. You may be inspired yourself to get out of the restaurant biz and get behind the mic.
 
Contact Eric at: eric@tipnotincluded.com