Come December 31, Middletown Dairy Queen Owner Don Frost will be paying his employees $1 an hour more.
"The challenge for us is to determine how to pay our bills," Frost said.
"When we schedule 5,6, 700 labor hours during the course of the week, if everyone is making a dollar more, that's 30K."
He and his wife Yolanda, who dons the uniform and gets to work herself, built the business from their personal savings two years ago.
"I'm basically working for free and so is my husband," she said.
They say $30,000 against the bottom line is a lot of money. They say lawmakers may not be in touch with how franchises like theirs work.
"We heard from Albany that these profitable, multinational companies could easily afford this," Frost said. "And that, to me, just illustrates that there's a basic misconception. None of the money is coming from the corporate entities."
Basically, Frost says his DQ is a mom-and-pop business. And like typical mom-and-pops, he is now looking at ways to adjust. Fewer hours for employees. The possibility of higher prices. And maybe someday, automated machines to take orders.
Morgan Moore has been with the restaurant since it opened. She recently finished her first semester in college and would like to someday run a business of her own. She possesses something Frost fears may get lost when hours get cut, or jobs get automated.
"People want their food fast and it's hard," Moore said. "We have goals to meet and we want to make everyone happy."
One great equalizer, Frost said, is more business, so he puts on the Blizzard costume himself and stands on the street, dancing around, trying to entice new business to his restaurant.
The hope he says is increased business, not increased prices.
"That could, to some extent, depress sales, and we don't want to do that," Frost said. "We love our customers and we want more of them to come in."
The minimum wage for fast food workers will increase until it hits $15 an hour by the end of July 2021.