Lady Gaga's dad and New York City restaurant owner Joe Germanotta reflected on his daughter's big break into box office hits and how it changed his life forever.
FOX Business host Maria Bartiromo asked the proud father whether Gaga's role in "A Star is Born" has changed his life "completely?" Germanotta replied without hesitation: "100%"
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"I used to wake up and think to myself, you know what? What happened? You know, where did this come from? You know, I'm, you know, I'm one of the luckiest guys in the world," Germanotta said on "Mornings with Maria."
The 2019 film starring Gaga and Bradley Cooper earned the artist known for flamboyant costumes and strong vocal talents an Academy Award for original song and a nod for actress in a leading role.
Germanotta went on to say that his daughter's achievements enabled him to pursue career advancements such as opening his restaurant, Joanne Trattoria, which has been running on the Upper West Side since 2012.
Since its inception, the restaurant has seen overwhelming success, however, recent economic issues have made it "harder to make ends meet."
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"January and February are notoriously slow months every year. This year it's lower. I think the discretionary income has gone down. Right now, people are looking for deals. They're coming out for prefixes. They're looking for the early bird special. That type of thing. So, it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet. Now, I expect it will pick up again in late February, March," Germanotta explained Thursday.
An additional unprecedented hardship Germanotta and other restaurant owners are forced to grapple with is the proposed crackdown on cash tips – Germanotta claims that this is the IRS's attempt to "push [them] out."
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"Well, I guess they're going to want us to write them down. So, at the end of the night, they're going to have to put it on the table, and we count it," he said.
"The other component of it is that now I understand they want to remove the tip credit. So we pay waiters and waitresses $10 an hour and they get a $5 tip credit to get them to $15 an hour minimum. Now, they're going to… get rid of that potentially. And, our rate per hour is going to have to go up to $15. So it's just, I think they're trying to push us out."
Germanotta concluded by discussing his daughter's latest ventures, noting that she is doing "tremendous" and is set to star as Harley Quinn in her newest film, "Joker: Folie à Deux," the sequel to the 2019 film "Joker."
