By Fabio Rivera

Fabio is a community journalist with FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

Gail Lynch is a micro entrepreneur, CEO of ZERO Cocktail Bar. Zero Cocktail bar is a Regent Park non-alcoholic cocktail business servicing events and offering mixology classes for up and coming baristas/bartenders. Gail started her company during the pandemic by building a bar and experimenting with the craft of the cocktail. As someone who has been sober for 10+ years she believed this was an amazing alternative to the usual cocktail and decided to show it off to the world. Enhancing sober living with access to a beautifully crafted and tasty cocktail. A genuine experience.

“Come for the Cocktail & Stay for the Chat” is a series of weekly interviews in which Gail showcases other local entrepreneurs within the Regent Park community giving them a platform to explain who they are and where their hearts are within their business.

This week's episode features Ibrahim Afrah, and of course, Gail Lynch.

Ibrahim is a “serial” entrepreneur and a community advocate whose ten year entrepreneurial career began with reading “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. Ibraham started off with a crepe store where everything went wrong, although, with his perseverance and focus he tells us how he got out of his “slump” and took his “failure” as a learning experience, through Daniel Spectrum, “a community cultural hub in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood is home to many outstanding arts-based and community focused organizations,” (https://danielsspectrum.ca/about-daniels-spectrum/) Ibrahim found himself with a bright idea to start up a company that involves a more efficient way to run a coat check and calling his business “Coat Check for Change” but, because of the pandemic, it did not last for long. Expressing his feelings towards being a community advocate, Ibrahim tells us about his journey from living with a mindset that you need to be either “rich or influential” to create a change. But when he came across author Jean Sharp, her views helped him get out of that headspace.

Ever since then Ibrahim has involved himself into many grassroots communities to help spread his wisdom and message. Overall a great conversation between two entrepreneurs who share the same entrepreneurial values, such as social change within the community.