Transcripts For CNBC The Profit 20240713

Lemonis new york city has a ton of energy, and its always been a place for dreamers. But when you get on the ferry, and you land on Staten Island, it may be less hectic, but theres still a real sense of possibility. Its one reason that im excited about today. For two years, sammy lazoja has been bombarding me with emails asking for my help. Hes been hyping this restaurant and how unique it is. And how it sets the standard. But to be honest with you, its kind of ordinary. Sammy marcus. Its a pleasure to meet you. Lemonis are you sammy . How you doing . Nice to meet you. Sammy its a pleasure. Lemonis weve been emailing for what is it, two years now. Sammy two years. Lemonis . Youve been harassing me . Sammy marcus, this is my dream. This is this is it. Lemonis well, come around front. Sammy i originally did the buildout. I put a lot of my funds in here. I put my life savings in here. Lemonis how much have you put in . Sammy around 250,000. Covello sammy sammy this is my partner joe covello. Lemonis joe c. Covello joe c. , yes. Nice to meet you, marcus. Tranchina joseph tranchina. Lemonis joe c. , joe t. Tranchina thats right. Todd todd baslin. Lemonis and youre just todd. So, is it youre 25 and theyre each sammy no. So, i own a 45 share. Tranchina 22. 5 . Covello 10 . Todd 22. 5 . Lemonis is the restaurant making money . All no. Lemonis how much are you losing . Covello currently, 5,000, 6,000 a month. Todd when you dont have the money to pay the bills, and you have to fight with your partners to pay the bills, it becomes an issue. Lemonis who acts as the owner operator, the person that unlocks the door and locks the door . Covello nobody. Lemonis do you have weekly meetings, where youre sitting here going over what we sold for the week . Todd no. Lemonis how [ chuckles ] tranchina keep in mind, none of us have had any restaurant ownership experience at all. Lemonis oh, i dont have to keep it in mind. I picked up on it pretty quick. Look, these guys all have fulltime jobs, but in a business like this, you want to have at least one guy thats responsible for the business, one who opens it and closes it and manages it on a daily basis. To me, it feels like these guys are doing this as more of a hobby than a business. How often are these guys, these owners, around . Antoinette todd comes in and night, randomly checks up on us, and so does sammy. Lemonis but if, like, the place was burning down, who would you call . Antoinette its whoevers available, really. Lemonis even the manager of the place doesnt know whos in charge. She doesnt have anybody to lean on. Whats the first place you look if youre gonna go eat at a restaurant . Tranchina oh, the bathroom. Lemonis lets check it out. Tranchina i just had them scrub this place the other night. Lemonis look at the toilet. Its disgusting. Tranchina yeah, it is. Thats a hot dog machine. Lemonis why do you keep it here . Todd we dont have much storage. Lemonis and how about this back here . This looks clean to you . Tranchina no. Lemonis the cleanliness of this restaurant well, its not measuring up to any sort of standard. I hope the food at least does. What is this back here . Sammy so, this is where we prep our patties. Lemonis you guys have frozen burgers . Sammy yeah. We reform them so it looks more handmade. Lemonis so, theyre not really handmade . Sammy no. Lemonis huh. Is everything frozen . Sammy yeah. Lemonis if youre telling me that your burger sets the standard, you kind of lost me at frozen. Well, what do you normally like here . As i walked around and i talked to some of the customers, youd think that people would go there for the burger and talk about it, how amazing it was. How was it . And they were telling me about a milkshake and fries. What do you recommend . Woman well, a lot of people get the texan. Thats like the most numberone burger. The double standard. Omg. Lemonis ill take one of each. So, who here comes up with all the burgers . Tranchina i did the initial menu. Lemonis you see, you go from 3. 99 to 8. 99. Thats a big jump. So, why is an omg 7. 15, and a standards 7. 25 . Todd theres no logic on it. Lemonis theres no logic. Thank you. Tranchina why are you serving that from right there when you can cook right there and give him a good one . Todd no, no, no. No, no, no. Clean that. Clean that grill so i dont get any of the burnt stuff on there. Lemonis ive been in businesses where controlled chaos exists. This place is chaos without the control. Tranchina recook this thing. I dont want answers. I want results. Dont be shy with the sauce. Sammy its my burger. Its my burger. Lemonis everybodys kind of yelling and complaining and arguing. Tranchina dont tell me why it came this way. Just fix it. This is embarrassing. The whole restaurants embarrassing. Lemonis this business would be best described as a lot of personality and not a lot of process. Sammy so, thats the texan. You have bacon. You have fried onion ring, lettuce, barbecue sauce, american cheese, and cheddar. Lemonis which is which is this one . Tranchina thats the double standard. Its basically a double cheeseburger. Lemonis whats in here . Sammy that is the omg burger. Jalapenos, american cheese, crunchy onions, and you have plantains. Lemonis honestly, i would say the burgers are average. [ chuckling ] i mean, i have to be honest with you. These burgers and the menu concoctions they sound like collegecampus drunkburger concoctions. Sammy wed be painting a wall and talking about, hey, lets do a brunch burger. Lets do a burger with a fried egg on it. Lemonis all right, great idea. Sounds awesome. Throw me another beer. Tranchina kind of, sort of, you know. Lemonis so, most chefs, if theyre creating a multitude of burgers, theyre understanding how the flavors interact with each other. Theres no sort of art and science. I thought this was a higherend burger establishment thats all fresh ingredients and interesting things about it that make the burgers different or the fries different. What i really walked into was a burger joint. Red velvet shake. You guys make those . Todd yes. Lemonis so, are shakes a big deal here . Todd yes. Lemonis are they good margins . Todd yes. A lot of people love our shakes. Lemonis for every burger that you sell, how many shakes are you attaching . Todd probably out of every three or four orders, theres a shake in there. Lemonis so, a 25 attachment . Todd probably. Lemonis and what is the percentage of attachment for fries to an order . Sammy almost 80 . Lemonis look, in a business like this, most people would think that the money is made in the burger. But to be honest with you, its made in other things. In this type of business, i think theres a lot more money to be made with french fries and ice cream, where the margins are 85 . The goal is making sure that you attach those things to as many burger orders as you possibly can. Thats where the moneys gonna get made. Do you guys have a like, an extralarge black tshirt or a red tshirt . I want to put a tshirt on. Sammy todd, i think theyre in the trunk of your car, todd. Lemonis i want to work in the kitchen with you guys. Young man you want red or black . Lemonis uh. Whered you get them from . Covello they were in todds trunk. Todd well, we have nowhere to store them, so we. Lemonis what do you mean, you have nowhere to store them . What about the office . Tranchina todd believes that they take them and bring them home and give them to their friends. Todd they used to disappear, and they used to walk out the door. Sammy so, at that point, your employees are walking out the door with them. Tranchina we also only give an employee one shirt and expect him to wear it five days a week when he works 40 hours a week. Lemonis these guys cant get along, and what ive seen is a lot of dysfunction. I mean, its no way to run a business. Who came up with the red velvet idea . Sammy so, my brother, fuji, helped me design the design the whole burger place. Lemonis and why isnt he here . Sammy the arguments, marcus. Lemonis between you and him or. Sammy no. Between todd and him. It came to a point where they were watching the cameras 24 7. Lemonis what cameras . Sammy the cameras in the restaurant. They were watching them from home, and he would get a phone call why is the refrigerator door open . You know . And he couldnt take the pressure anymore. He couldnt. And he walked away. When we lost my brother, marcus, we really lost the sense of a chef here. Todd his brother doesnt work here anymore because weve all had issues with him. Lemonis did he work . Did he come in early and stay late . Tranchina he lived here. He was like having you here when youre not here. Todd fuji can get the job done. The problem is, you need to give him that direction. Sammy micromanaging. They will micromanage you till they snap your neck, literally. Lemonis who will . Sammy todd in general. Todd todd does this. Todd does that. Todd takes the shirts. Todd does anything. Sammy no, no, no, no, no, no. Covello there was times where the store wasnt open until 1 00 in the afternoon cause he didnt open it. Tranchina fuji was here developing sauces, coming up with ideas, staying till 1 00 in the morning, scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes. Lemonis look, depending on who you listen to, sammys brother, fuji, is either the guy who ran this business into the ground or the one who made it run. Sammy he helped me develop most of this restaurant on paper before we even came here. [ voice breaking ] and thats the [bleep] truth, marcus. Thats the truth. And hes not here anymore cause of that reason. And its and its [bleep] ridiculous. [ sniffling ] [ crying ] lemonis um. It sounds like youre more hurt that your brother was kicked out. Sammy yeah, he he raised me. My parents are hardworking people, you know, firstgeneration, worked two jobs, sometimes even three. Lemonis firstgeneration what . Sammy from montenegro. He didnt have the opportunities i had in life, cause when he was 18, he was watching me. And this was my opportunity to set him up. Lemonis you really built this for him, didnt you . Sammy i built it for for my brother and for my family. [ voice breaking ] i feel i failed them. I really do. Lemonis why do you feel that way . Its open. Sammy hes not here. Hes not here. The restaurant is falling apart. Hes home for the last seven months. Its tough. Its really tough, marcus. Lemonis so, he doesnt have a job . Sammy he doesnt have a job, no. Lemonis does he live far from here . Sammy he lives in the same house i live in. Lemonis how far is that from here . Sammy right down the block. Lemonis lets call your brother just to sammy yeah. Lemonis id love to meet him. The fact that sammy is willing to be vulnerable and be honest about why he started the business and how much he loves his brother gives me reason to want to dig in more. Sammy fujis pulling in right now. Lemonis okay. [ indistinct conversations ] [ light laughter ] sammy marcus, this is my older brother, fuji. Lemonis how you doing, my man . Nice to meet you. You got a good little brother here. Fuji yeah. Lemonis hes got a big heart. Fuji definitely. Lemonis how long have you been in the Restaurant Business . Fuji since 14. Im 41 now. Lemonis since you were 14 . Fuji yeah. My father was a chef. Lemonis did you develop a lot of stuff here . Fuji yeah. The sauces, the burgers. Lemonis why did you decide to leave . Fuji too many differences, too many bumping heads. Like, instead of having one boss, i had like four bosses. There was too many cameras on me. Its just like, i would get a phone call. Sammy whyd you leave the fridge open . Or sometimes, with todd, ill push back against it, and then ill just say, you know what, todd . Whatever. Todd marcus [clears throat] it seems to be that the blame that you want to put is all on me. All i do is i try to make sure that its not costing everybody more money because, if were gonna talk honest, my partners will just spend, and it dont matter. Tranchina how do you function in a restaurant with someone Walking Around telling you, were not gonna let them get paid training. You have to train them all together as a group while theyre working. I dont spend 100 of my time here, but other people do. Is this place 100 successful . Lemonis but, actually, none of you are here 100 of the time. All no. Lemonis the only person that was ever here 100 of the time at some point was fuji. Fuji right. Lemonis hey, guys, can i just have a moment with them two, please . I asked you guys for the first five hours i was here, why dont you have anybody with restaurant experience . And not until five hours later did i even find out that you had a brother, that you had a brother that created a lot of the products, that your brother has 20, 30 years of restaurant experience. Thats kind of, like, the most important detail. Fujis the only guy with restaurant experience. So, when you take a guy out of the equation that had restaurant experience, what did you think was gonna happen . Why dont you make me a burger . Let me see how different it is. That gives me a reason to at least want to give him a chance. What are you making here . What do you have in there . Fuji italian burger. I was, like, trying to make the mona lisa for them, and they were painting a mustache on her. Lemonis right. Fuji definitely has a different process than what i saw earlier. Not only is he using fresh meat, but hes taking the time to use the right spices and the right blends. Thats how a specialty burger is supposed to be made. Bring that knife, please. Tranchina wow. It looks good. Sammy what do we got . Oh, this things bangin. Lemonis these burgers are way better than what i had earlier. Did you try this one . Unbelievable. Tranchina which one is that one . Let me get some of that. Im starving. Lemonis its got the fresh meat and the herbs and the spices. Covello im loving this. Fuji thats the italian. Lemonis theyre not perfect, but there seems to be real potential. Fuji not bad. [ chuckles ] lemonis its time for us to sit down. I want to see the financials. Covello its fairly accurate. Lemonis i hope its more than fairly. Youre doing about 600,000 a year in sales, and so you definitely have a revenue problem, because in this size of a place, you should be doing well over 630,000 a year. Todd i agree with you. Lemonis in the month of october, you did 47,000. 23,500 alone are food costs. Todd yes. Lemonis the reason that todds having to snip you here and snip you here is cause hes looking at these food costs, and theyre offensive. Todd thats exactly what the problem is. Lemonis you want to know why the doors are about to close . You cant make money with a food cost at 50 . Food costs, on average, should be down in the low 20s. Youre doing 47,000 in revenue. Sammy yes. Lemonis 23,500 are food costs. Tranchina foods in there, yeah. Todd your rent and your taxes come out to like 10,700. Lemonis and labors 13,000. Its right here. Theres another 5,200 between insurance, workers comp, and utilities. Theyre only like 64,800 away. So, were not that far from making money. Tranchina no. Todd and thats what ive always said. Lemonis if we can fix the product, then we can change the process, but these guys have to be able to coexist when im not here. And so i have a lot of reservations about moving forward. If i hadnt come today, what would happen . Covello i dont think the place would be open much longer. Lemonis why . Covello money and then the personality issues. Todd if we dont fix the problem, were gonna have to close the doors. Lemonis im gonna have to do a lot of work here. And i cant do the deal without a manager here. And, so, one of you has to be here all the time. Tranchina all of us keeping our nose in this business, especially my brotherinlaw, suffocates the [bleep] out of people. Todd okay, but im willing to step back. So, who wants to do it . Tranchina okay. Ill do it. Lemonis so, joe would be here as my manager designee, running the place on a daytoday basis. Were gonna get our food costs right. Were gonna come up with some very Creative Ideas that are gonna make us different, and were not gonna micromanage people. The Business Needs a manager, but i also think it needs somebody with restaurant experience. I dont do this deal without fuji in the deal for two reasons because its broken his heart that his brothers not here, and his brother is the only one with restaurant experience. I cant do the deal without him. Were finally back out in our yard, but so are they. Scotts turf builder triple action. It kills weeds, prevents crabgrass and feeds so grass can thrive, guaranteed. Our backyard is back. This is a scotts yard. And wells fargo employees are assisting millions of customers never before across america through fee waivers and payment deferrals, helping people stay in their homes through mortgage Payment Relief efforts and donating 175 Million Dollars to help hundreds of local organizations provide food and other critical needs. When you need us, wells fargo is here to help. Will it be familiar streets . Or perhaps unknown roads . Wherever you may go, lexus will welcome you back with exceptional offers. Find a lexus for every road at lexus. Com. No payments for up to 90 days on all 2020 lexus models. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Lemonis i dont do this deal without fuji in the deal. I cant. Im not doing it, not taking the risk. Its too dangerous for me. Covello i dont have a problem with fuji here. Todd listen, if you want to put fuji there and train him, then i think fuji will be great for you. Lemonis for or for us . Todd for us. Sammy i think fuji should have some skin the game, get at least 10 you know what i mean . To make it serious. Lemonis so far, everybodys on board with some pretty big changes, but i have one more commitment that i want from them. I want them to put their money where their mouth is. Heres my offer. If each of you whose businesses primary businesses are doing well are willing to kick in 15,000 apiece, ill kick in 130,000. The reason that i want each of you to put 15,000 in is i want you to reaffirm your commitment to me. You guys know that when you take my check, i am 100 in charge. And i get 30 of the business. Show me that its not just a hobby. Put your money where your mouth is. Todd i do it every day, so you dont have a problem here. Sammy im good with it. Lemonis we got a deal . 15,000 . Covello 15,000. Lemonis 15,000 . 15,000 . Sammy you got a deal. Thank you. Lemonis fulltime . Tranchina yeah, fulltime. [ laughter ] thats crazy. [ chuckles ] lemonis look, these guys theyre like brothers. And if you pair that with their passion well, its hard to come by this could be the real recipe to success, and im glad to be a part of it. Sammy so, youre back. Youre back at standard burger, just to let you know, and you have a 10 equity. You love this place from the top to the bottom. You were here from day one. I think if anybody deserves this, its you. Fuji thank you, guys. Todd fuje, congratulations, brother. Fuji thank you. [ smooches ] covello congratulations. Fuji good times, man. Lemonis hows it feel to be back with your brother . Fuji its good. I love him to death. Sammy [ crying ] marcus, yyou have no idea what you just did for me. You didnt just save my business, but you saved my dream, and and you let me repay my brother. Lemonis you five really are youre the backbone of this business. Tranchina were the burger boys. Lemonis five guys from Staten Island who have a burger place, who literally sent me an email every fing day. [ laughter ] all right . Sammy marcus, thank you so much. Thank you. Lemonis lets get everybody together. Last night, we made a deal. I made a deal to invest 130,000 in this business. That 130,000 is gonna go into the business to pay all the pastdue bills, put money in the bank so that we can buy the right product and not cut corners. In addition to that, im getting 30 of the business. But im 100 in charge. So, fuji is in charge of the kitchen, and he is now a partner, as well. Joseph is now the managing partner. If were gonna set the standard, its gonna be my standard, and my standard is way higher than you guys. When im done, there will be Something Special about our food. There will be something unique and different that nobody else on Staten Island will have. And were gonna start over. Is that clear . Tranchina i like that very much. Sammy im ready. Im ready. Lemonis but we got a lot of damn work to do. Lets get to work. Come on. So, fuji, one of the things that were gonna do were gonna start over on the menu. Now that weve got the chef back, the thing im most excited about is getting him into that kitchen to come up with new ideas. Im looking to kind of see the gold inside of here come out in here. Fuji all righty. Tranchina what do you think about doing a mixture, like doing a little pork with a little beef or something . Meatballs sometimes that meat is so juicy cause its got that fat from the pork in there. Maybe, like, some jalapenos with some brown sugar like, they balance each other out. You got to play around, try different stuff. Lemonis its important for me to be very clear with these guys on whose job is what. I wanted to clarify something so we dont keep having these bumpy roads. So, whos in charge of the menu . Tranchina i should be in charge of the menu. Lemonis why would you be in charge of the menu . Tranchina i just want to make sure that some stuff stays there that actually supports the restaurant, thats all. Lemonis well, wouldnt he know that, though . Wouldnt you give him the data and you would train him on the data, right, and say, heres whats selling, heres whats not. Tranchina if you put it that way, yes. Lemonis look, we dont have time for shenanigans, and i dont have time for the drama. What i have time to do is fix the business. If you want to take something off the menu or put something on the menu, whose decision is that . Fuji mine. Lemonis whats up, guys . Sammy holy [bleep] i came in this morning, and the kitchens filling up with water. The snow is melting in the back of the restaurant, clogged up all our drains. Lemonis where is it coming in . Sammy ill show you. We have drains underneath here, but theyre clogged up. Every time we get heavy rain or a little snowmelt, same problem. Lemonis the issue is that you got all this garbage here, and you got stuff clogged up. Its got nothing to do with the snow. What what what did i get myself into . This place is a mess. They completely abandoned this place. Look at this. I got an empty soda machine. I got trash everywhere. I got milk crates everywhere. I got an old fence. You dont need a plumber. You need a construction crew. You guys got to be out of your minds. This is why your business is in trouble. It isnt cause of your broken relationships. Are you kidding . Sammy i was telling you we need help. Lemonis my job is to work on the numbers and margins and the process, not to come up here and clean trash. You know anybody thats got a dump truck . We can load this stuff up . Sammy yeah. Lemonis call them up. Get somebody here now. Come on, man. Seriously. This is a restaurant, not an autorepair center. Whens the last time that you guys took everything out of this place and cleaned it . Tranchina we we clean ever day. Lemonis youre telling me that everythings cleaned every day . Tranchina yeah. Lemonis guys, this isnt clean. I mean, look down here. Thats not clean. Dude, thats disgusting. Im frustrated, because what i signed up for wasnt this. Joseph, what is this . Tranchina yeah, thats our current filing system for our p. O. S. Receipts. Lemonis are you kidding . I mean, this is a [bleep] joke. Years of Financial Data and customer receipts are sitting in a Cardboard Box in the middle of a flood zone. Who runs a business that way . I would rather you had nothing. Tranchina the box is obsolete, though. This is negative steps in the wrong direction. Lemonis im just telling you, you are way more fed up than i thought. Tranchina what would you do with all the tickets at the end of the day . Lemonis i either would file them, or i would shred them. This place is filthy. Its almost like these guys gave up. Standard burger feels more like substandard. I want you to take that off. Sammy we set the standard . Lemonis yeah. You dont set any standard. Get the razor. Take that [bleep] off. I dont want that standard. There are a million businesses that i could be working on. I dont need to be wasting my time with a broken burger business with four or five guys that just basically walked away from the place and have left me to clean it up. This may have been a mistake for me. Sammy marcus, i dont want you to feel that way. Lemonis i do feel that way. Sammy well make it right, marcus. Ii promise. Lemonis honestly, i think we have to close. Sammy [ sighs ] it started with a few fifty dollars here. Eighty dollars. A hundred dollars. I had good health insurance. Why isnt this covered . Well, then they started getting bigger. Eighthundred dollars. Eighteen hundred dollars. I saved for this. But not that much. Im glad i had aflac. They gave me money when i needed it most. Thats why aflac is here, to help with the Expenses Health insurance doesnt cover. I love that aflac duck. Aflac get to know us at aflac. Com were finally back out in our yard, but so are they. Scotts turf builder triple action. It kills weeds, prevents crabgrass and feeds so grass can thrive, guaranteed. Our backyard is back. This is a scotts yard. Stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. And take. It. On. With rinvoq. Rinvoq a oncedaily pill. Can dramatically improve symptoms. Rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. And for somerinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. Thats rinvoq relief. With ra, your overactive immune system. Attacks your joints. Rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. Rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious infections and blood clots, sometimes fatal, have occurred. As have certain cancers, including lymphoma, tears in the stomach or intestines, and changes in lab results. Your doctor should monitor your bloodwork. Tell your doctor about any infections. And if you are or may become pregnant while taking rinvoq. Take on ra talk to your rheumatologist about rinvoq relief. Rinvoq. Make it your mission. If you cant afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. Were committed to serving, our communities by doing what we do best. Serving you and making one great steak. Thats why we have curbside takeaway and delivery on outback. Com because at outback steakhouse, were here to serve you. Lemonis honestly, i think we have to close. Tranchina i mean, how long you talking about closing for . Lemonis i dont know. However long it takes. Look, three days ago, i thought we could fix the process and improve the food. But honestly, its gonna take way more than that. If we really want to set the standard and i truly believe we can, cause these guys have the heart and the passion then were gonna have to tear this place all the way down to the studs and start over. [ jackhammer pounding ] outside, im busting up the concrete, redoing the parking lot, and creating a whole new seating area more tables, more chairs, more money. So, youre gonna build a shake bar, and its a radius counter. Tranchina i like that bar a lot, man. Sammy nobodys doing this. Lemonis one of the things that i want to do with this space is bring attention to the two Business Segments that we want to drive in terms of revenue and profitability a new ice cream station and a new potato station that have amazing margins. Take that current dessert area and turn that into the potato station. If you ever ordered a baked potato, its a baked potato with some toppings. You sell it for somewhere around 5. 99. It probably, with the toppings, costs no more than 1. 25. And i like baked potatoes. Where can you get a healthy baked potato today . Nowhere. With the restaurant closed for construction, it is time to make some changes. Standard burger is good, but i want to be the best. Woman welcome, everybody. Lemonis we hit Chelsea Market to find the best bread. Woman give it a taste. Yes. Tranchina its unique, delicious. Lemonis for me personally, a burger isnt a great burger unless its got great cheese. Fuji, what did you want to look at here . Fuji some cow cheeses, some sheep cheeses. Man this is made in vermont. Its got really high moisture content, so it could be a really good melter. Tranchina that was some good cheese. Thank you so much. Lemonis but the most important part of a burger is the meat. Pat this is where it all happens right here. Tranchina the magic happens. Pat we have a Million Pounds of meat in this building. Lemonis unbelievable. Fuji thats a lot of beef. Im in heaven. Sammy [ laughs ] fuji im hungry lemonis ideally, we would have a couple variations of quality of meat. Pat the possibilities are endless. Sammy something with filet in it. Fuji a little bit of age into it not too much, cause not everybodys a fan of age, but a little bit of aged in it. Lemonis and so we could have fuji design exactly what he wants and then covello then take it to test. Lemonis our burgers are gonna be made with the best meat, and theyre gonna be topped with the best cheese, and theyre gonna be served on the best bun. Thats how you set the standard. Thank you, pat. Tranchina thanks for taking the time to see us, man. Sammy so, lets see what we do. Marcus. Lemonis hi, guys. With some major changes to the burger and the building, i feel like were making a lot of progress. I just want to make sure that we stay that way. This looks a lot better. As you went through this process of cleaning this place, what did you learn . Sammy i think we had a good start. Tranchina yes. And we need to get back to basics, yeah. Sammy we went off track a bit, cause we used to stay two hours past when we were closing to make sure the floors were scrubbed down and things were put back together. Lemonis what is that . Sammy thats a camera. Lemonis theres one in here, too . Sammy yeah. Todd you know why . cause were having people that walk out with product. Lemonis who put the cameras in originally . Todd the cameras were here from day one. Fuji there were more added cameras. Lemonis they added more after . Fuji . And more and more. Lemonis and who added them . Fuji it was between covello and todd. Lemonis fuji, i have to ask you every time this camera thing comes up, you look like youre about to freak out. Todd fuje, you want to answer that . Fuji we were trying to run a business, and the phone would ring every 15 minutes. Why is this this . Every time the phone rang, it was like, its todd. Todd who was it that called you . No, it wasnt todd that called you. Fuji and we couldnt run a business. Todd that wasnt todd that called you. Fuji it was just nonsense. Todd yeah, he can tell you anything he wants. Tranchina fujis had a bad experience, though. Todd fuji wasnt an angel here. Lemonis look, cameras are always important in a business because you want to monitor traffic patterns, and you want to prevent theft, but these cameras they seem to have been put in place for one reason, and that was to watch fuji. And thats created a major rift. Joe, what do you think . Covello there was a lot of good things fuji did, but towards the end, there was there was guys, fuji was coming in late, and then the girls were calling. Fuji fuji coming in late . Covello the staff would call us. The staff would call me or todd and say, were waiting outside. We cant get in because fujis not here. Tranchina thats happened a number of times. And i think that started happening once fuji was fighting with todd. Covello and then once he would walk in, he would edit the time clock so that we wouldnt know that the time was [bleep] with. Fuji who told you that are you kidding me . Sammy its not true. Covello im not kidding. Fuji i was not here one day late. Covello okay. Fuji that was kristin. Covello and dont say its not true. You were part of the conversation. Sammy thats not true. Fuji that is not true. Sammy i wasnt part of the conversation. Fuji now were going into [bleep] tranchina listen, listen, guys. Fuji i was not one day late. I live three blocks away. Sammy what about all the times, hey, nobodys at the burger place to open up. Call fuji. So, what the [bleep] are you talking about . Fuji i was late every day, and im switching the time clock . Tranchina all right, listen, guys, guys, guys, thats enough of this. Im not gonna go in for this. This aint gonna happen here. Hey hey fuji thats the [bleep] that i left this place. Tranchina thats enough. Fuji, thats enough. Dont let this happen on tv. Stop yourself. Sammy after six months of [bleep] doing what i had to do. Fuji i was here every [bleep] single day on time. Lemonis changing the menu isnt that hard, nor is renovating the place, but getting people to coexist and Work Together thats the hard part. There are some deepseated issues here, and quite frankly, we need to rip the bandaid off. Sammy get the [bleep] out of here. Im done with this conversation, too. Covello okay. Okay. Sammy get the [bleep] out of here. Lemonis you know why he doesnt like it . cause he doesnt want to argue. But i know theres more issues cause i see the reaction. Sammy, like that, bud. Sammy this is why i walked away from it. This is why i abandoned this place. Lemonis all right. Sammy this is the reason. Im [bleep] shaking. I cant even deal with it. Lemonis so, come on back in here for a second. Heres the reality. The restaurants closed, so now we have to figure out if were gonna move forward or not. If your business is in trouble and you need my help, log on to. Just between us, you know whats better than mopping . Anything at the end of a long day, its the last thing i want to do. Well i switched to swiffer wet jet and its awesome. Its an allinone so its ready to go when i am. The cleaning solution actually breaks down dirt and grime. And the pad absorbs it deep inside. So, it prevents streaks and haze better than my old mop. Plus, its safe to use on all my floors, even wood. Glad i got that off my chest and the day off my floor. Try wet jet with a moneyback guarantee were finally back out in our yard, but so are they. Scotts turf builder triple action. It kills weeds, prevents crabgrass and feeds so grass can thrive, guaranteed. Our backyard is back. This is a scotts yard. [elevator bell] yup. Little choices make a big difference. Like delicious fruits and veggies. However you healthy. Naked. Were committed to serving, our communities by doing what we do best. Serving you and making one great steak. Thats why we have curbside takeaway and delivery on outback. Com because at outback steakhouse, were here to serve you. At mercedesbenz, nothing service will do. Class thats why were expanding your range of choices. Many dealers now offer optional pickup delivery and athome maintenance, as well as Online Shopping with Home Delivery and special finance arrangements. So, whether you visit your local dealer or prefer the comfort of home you can count on the very highest level of service. Get 0 apr financing up to 36 months on most models, and 90day firstpayment deferral on any model. Lemonis the restaurants closed, both literally and figuratively, so now we have to figure out if were gonna move forward or not. The reality of it is, is that you guys have some deeper problems than just the kind of stuff we dealt with the other day. Once this argument is finished, were gonna move forward. Todd okay. Lemonis okay . And im a believer that everybody thats standing in this room is committed to this. And so i think from this point forward, theres gonna be six guys, were gonna own a burger place, and were gonna kick ass. Todd lets go. Covello and i think the dynamic will work the way you had set it up. Lemonis i know they have the right intentions. They just need somebody to to get them in line. But i have to be honest with you. All the cameras are gonna go except for the one over the register. Todd you could probably unscrew it. Sammy yeah. Todd [ chuckles ] lemonis no more discussion about a [bleep] camera. I never want to hear about cameras in here again. Fuji smash it. Lemonis the conversation that we just had just needed to happen. And i feel like now were ready to really turn the corner. We dont need cameras to trust each other. This is the start of something new. Tranchina the best part about this whole process for me was you fixing this. Lemonis this is just getting fixed. Tranchina right, but i dont want to do that no more. Lemonis you dont want to do what . Tranchina im not arguing with my friends no more for tv. Its not gonna happen, so dont do it again. Lemonis first of all, dont talk to me that way. Tranchina dont embarrass my friends and family like that again. Lemonis first of all, dont talk to me that way. Im not here for television. Im here for you. I dont care about television. Tranchina okay. Lemonis this guy annoyed me for two years because he said he wanted to save his friendship with you. You guys feel like you lost your friendship with each other, right . Tranchina mmhmm. Lemonis and it was more important for me to come here and fix you guys first, because the business will fail if you guys arent right. Sammy our relationship what it used to be to now night and day. We used to come here because we wanted to be here. It was like we were drawn here. There was a love and commitment here. Now its, oh, i have to go there. Its a [bleep] chore. We had a dream. We had a [bleep] passion. I dont know where the [bleep] it went and what the [bleep] happened to it, but we had an idea. We had something that nobody had, and nobody could take it away from us. And it [bleep] went to [bleep] it went to [bleep] and thats what i want to [bleep] fix. Thats why i bothered him for two years cause i still [bleep] believe in it, still. Im willing to do all this cause i believe in that [bleep] that opportunity, what we had, that dream we all had together. Tranchina [ sniffs ] lemonis i know its upsetting, but i need you guys to move past it, or this things never gonna work. Covello we need to just put this behind us. Lemonis you guys are gonna be friends or family long after this place is gone. Todd marcus, youre gonna get to know me well, and youre gonna get to understand that. [ laughter ]. Money never comes in between my friendships or my family. Lemonis what im noticing is that they now are starting to believe that my intent is to have them Work Together, and they are starting to trust the process. Weve taken a step forward. Now we have to finish the rest of it. You guys have to trust this process, okay . Are we clear . Sammy clear. Tranchina can we start making some burgers and some money, please, and get past this crap . [ laughter ] lemonis what started as a simple renovation has turned into a huge production. Im gonna quadruple my investment and totally reimagine this place. Tranchina i build skyscrapers for a living, bro. Lemonis i decided to create a National Concept, something that i can use as a prototype, something that, if it works, i can scale across the country. And so i wanted to do it right. Theres gonna be a special section for ice cream and shakes. Fuji what do you think, boys . Lemonis and were adding a custom potato bar. The addition of the potato and the ice cream bar should add about 10 to an average order for a visiting customer. And on an annual basis, theyre gonna see about 100,000 people. 100,000 times 10 thats 1 million of revenue. Man 1 success. Man 2 [ laughs ] lemonis im excited. Wthe Natural Light is amazing. Hardwood floors. There is a bit of a clogging problem. clog dancing at least geico makes it easy to bundle our renters and car insurance. Yeah, helping us save us even more. For bundling made easy, go to geico. Com tmobile and sprint to power your business. Were building a 5g network that will deliver unprecedented reach and reliability, and the highest capacity in history. With more coverage and more bandwidth to keep your employees connected, you will get the largest and most Reliable Network at an unbeatable price. Tmobile for business. You have the support of a, probiotic and the gastroenterologists who developed it. Align helps to soothe your occasional digestive upsets twentyfour seven. So where you go, the pro goes. Go with align. The pros in digestive health. And if stress worsens your digestive issues, try new align digestive destress. It combines aligns probiotic with ashwagandha to help soothe occasional digestive upsets, plus stress that can make them worse. And try align gummies with probiotics to help support digestive health. Or is it . What if business as usual means putting people first. And understanding their needs . If thats your business. 365 days of every year, then business as usual is precisely what these times require. Which is why your lexus dealer will do what weve always done. Put you first. Find out how we can service your individual needs at lexus. Com peoplefirst. Find out how we can service your individual needs lemonis well, i wanted to bring you guys to umami burger because it really has established itself as kind of a real benchmark in fine dining for burgers. There are a lot of changes that have to happen at standard burger the pricing, the look, the presentation. What i wanted to do is bring them to umami burger to see how a good idea actually gets executed. Ill have the the umami burger, the signature burger. Sammy give us the menu. Todd give us a little bit of everything. Sammy marcus is paying. [ laughter ] lemonis im not paying. Hes paying. Todd ill pay the bill. [ laughter ] man ill get that started for you. Covello thank you. Man youre welcome. Lemonis so, when you look at the prices, which are a little more premium whats our opening price point . Sammy i think our opening price point should be around 8 bucks. I think 7 bucks. Lemonis 7. Lemonis we want to deliver a highquality burger with the freshest and finest ingredients. A 7 burger isnt gonna work. We want to average a 25 food cost. If the burger costs us 3. 50 to make, then the retail price is gonna have to be around 12. Were gonna operate with the food cost as our basis, not our gut. What is the first thing that somebody will order . Fuji a burger. Lemonis and how are we presenting it . Fuji lettuce, tomato, and ketchup and cheese. Thats gonna be the standard. Lemonis we know that, with the margins on fries, right, it probably costs us somewhere around 50 cents with packaging and everything. And were gonna sell our fries for 5. Think about the margins on that. Today, 70 of their revenue comes from selling hamburgers. And so we want to drive the product mix to have hamburgers not be more than 50 of all the product that we sell. The other 50 of the products that we sell have to be products with margins of 80 and 85 , like fries, potatoes, ice cream. Were looking for everybody that we possibly can to order fries with their burger and to get a shake with their burger. Thats the way this place makes money. Todd bon appetit, guys. Lemonis this looks great. Thank you. This looks amazing. Tranchina this looks great, yeah. Lemonis in order for this relationship to be successful and not have the kind of nonsense that happened yesterday, you cant crash into each other. And you have to respect each other and trust each other. Todd clean slate, like were opening our doors again as a brandnew restaurant. Sammy a brandnew us. Fuji a brandnew us. True. Lemonis to the burger boys. Fuji to the burger boys. Tranchina salud. Drink up. Covello salud. Lemonis after a month of renovation and 400,000, ive seen pictures, ive seen video, but nothing compares to being there for the first time and seeing it all done. [ indistinct conversations ] sammy so, marcus, what do you think . Lemonis this patio came out great. [ laughing ] this was big, big, big balls on both of our parts. Sammy i tell you, man. Lemonis even before i go inside, im already seeing a huge revenue boost. We have 52 seats outside, double what we had before. So, for eight months a year, that means double the revenue. Sammy the place looks beautiful. I could have never imagined this. Lemonis all right, my man, lets get in there. Sammy yeah. Lemonis i am blown away. Sammy blown away, right . Yoohoo, progressive shoppers. We laughed with you. Sprinkles are for winners. We surprised you. On occasion, weve probably even annoyed you. Weve done this all with one thing in mind. To help protect the things you love. And if we cant offer you the best price well help you find a better one. Its not always the lowest even if its not with us. Thats how weve done it for the past 80 years. Not just today, or this month, but always. engine revving soft beeps little choices make a big difference. Like nutritious fruit smoothies. However you healthy. Naked. And wells fargo employees are assisting millions of customers never before however you healthy. Across america through fee waivers and payment deferrals, helping people stay in their homes through mortgage Payment Relief efforts and donating 175 Million Dollars to help hundreds of local organizations provide food and other critical needs. When you need us, wells fargo is here to help. No uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. Nnnnono lemonis all right, my man, lets get in there. I am blown away. Sammy blown away, right . Lemonis the space is warmer, friendly than i thought it was gonna be. Ive done other, larger projects when were building from the ground up, but in terms of transformation, this is by far the biggest yet. I spent over 400,000 rebranding and reconcepting standard burger. Everythings different inside the lighting, the tables, the chairs, the kitchen equipment. Honestly, its a whole new business. Sammy what do you think . You like it . Lemonis i think it looks amazing. The new menu board, the craft sodas and beers. Everything is different. This place looks amazing. Tranchina its so great, right . Lemonis and i have to tell you i think we have a real winner. What i cant believe is how many people are here. Tranchina yeah. Sammy yeah. Lemonis its packed. When i first got to Staten Island, they had 50 seats that turned an average of 3 times per day, at 10 an average order. Thats 1,500 a day in revenue. Now, with the outside patio and the new inside space, we have 100 seats. If those same 100 seats turn the same 3 times per day, well, thats 300 customers. But our average order is now 15 per customer. Thats 4,500 per day, an increase of 3,000 per day. On an annualized basis, thats a little over 1 million a year in increased revenue. Boy i had the standard burger. Lemonis you had the standard burger . Weve dramatically changed the menu to not only five signature burgers, but we built an entire Business Model off of potatoes. Throw an order of yucca in. I want to try it. And whether thats different types of fries, like regular fries, sweet potato fries, or yucca, we added all those things. Lemonis check it out. Come on, guys. It came out beautiful. Pick your potato, pick your toppings, oven, go. Sammy simple. Yeah. Lemonis and in addition to that, we built a very highmargin, very popular bakedpotato bar. It gives people the chance to buy a baked potato or a sweet potato stuffed with all their favorite toppings. Weve also added an ice cream bar. Not only is there scoops of ice cream, but what we have now is a cake shake. It is so good. It costs us about 1. 78 to build the shake, including all the products that can go in there. We sell that shake for 5. So, we know the margins are spectacular. Woman ah lemonis you guys are the only ones with red velvet ice cream on the island. Lemonis how many people on the island are serving yucca fries . Sammy none. Lemonis if we just sell ice cream and fries, were good to go. Tranchina the burgers are really just complementing the ice cream and fries. Lemonis and then the baked potatoes have great margins, as well. Tranchina also huge. [ indistinct conversations ] lemonis is the wifi system set up from at t . Tranchina yes, at t came in. They set up the free wifi, which was great. The customers are gonna love that. Lemonis okay. Well, it allows them to communicate. And they can take pictures, put them on instagram. Tranchina yeah, we love that. We encourage them to do it. Lemonis but we should be able to get to the point where we can take orders remotely. Like, if this line gets long, we can start to take orders over there or take them outside. Tranchina id love that. Yeah, that would be great. Lemonis awesome. What is this, all the orders . Sammy [ laughing ] yeah. Lemonis lets see how high we can make it. The energy level, the enthusiasm level, the vibe in here compared to the first day i met you guys, its like im in a totally different place. Are there any cameras here we should be looking for . Todd hidden. [ laughter ] i had them install them. Tranchina you cant take them all away lemonis im proud of what these guys have done. And in the end, they recognize that being together as friends almost like family is the only way to be. And now they have a business thats been rebuilt, and their relationships are being rebuilt. What i wanted to do was do something that really represented the relationship that you guys have and the history that you have and the family that you have, okay . All right, so, let me show you. [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] i started with investing in a small place in Staten Island, and what ive ended up investing in is a National Concept that i think is portable. You guys are the faces of the business, and you should have some fun with it. Tranchina i love it. Thank you, marcus. Thank you very much. Sammy thank you. Lemonis i think my investment was definitely worth it. Lemonis standard burger, come on down . Im back to check on the progress at standard burger. How you doing, sir . Good to see you. Joe t. good, brother. You, too. Lemonis so far, ive invested over 400,000 in this quickservice restaurant to make it a model for a national franchise. But what ive put in place has gone off the rails. Sammy bad burgers, bad fries, bad customer service. For the last 90 days, its been [bleep] lemonis and the partners are too busy fighting to fix it. Joe t. im the guy thats here every day. Sammy right, whats your problem . Joe t. . And youre the guy that shows up once a month, thats what it is. Thats the problem. Lemonis we have a big opportunity to grow this business. We have a franchisee scheduled to come here, but it looks like chaos to me. But if these guys cant grow up. Sammy i laid out all the kitchen equipment, designed the entire space