My name is marcus lemonis, and i risk my own money to save struggling businesses. Were not going to wake up every morning wondering if we have a job. Were gonna wake up every morning wondering how many jobs we have to do. Its not always pretty. Everythings gonna change everything. But i do it to save jobs, and i do it to make money. This. Lets go to work. Is the profit. Milwaukee has some of the best food and drink in the country. Something i know well because i went to college there. Thats me when i had hair. And one of the newer local favorites is the soup market. Stephanie hi, honey. How are you . Lemonis a quickservice chain started in 2004 by chef dave jurena and his business partner. Dave anything else for you, sir . Lemonis dave did the cooking while his partner ran the business. Woman thats good. Lemonis and before long, the soup market had expanded to five locations, with plans for many more. Then daves partner and coowner died suddenly, leaving him struggling to run the company and putting his dreams of expansion on hold. Dave cant do it. Lemonis and thats why he reached out to me. A highmargin, highvolume concept like soup would make for a great franchise opportunity. And with 2 million in revenue, the soup market may just be a few small fixes away from being the next big thing in fast casual dining. Im meeting dave at the soup market location in Hales Corners a suburb of milwaukee. What i noticed right away when i walked through the doors, about the design, well, there isnt any. It looks more like a hospital cafeteria. Stephanie hello lemonis hi. Stephanie how are you today . Lemonis good. How are you . Stephanie good, thank you. Lemonis im marcus. Stephanie nice to meet you. Stephanie. Lemonis stephanie, nice to meet you. How are you . Dave hi, marcus. Im dave. Lemonis hey, dave. How are you . Dave great to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. Jill hi, im daves wife jill. Lemonis how are you, jill . Nice to meet you. So, are you both in the business . Jill no, i work awm in athletics. Lemonis oh, you do . Dave but she has worked farmers markets for us. Lemonis okay. Well, ive never been in a place like this, so i wanted to kind of get a feel for it. Dave all right. So, the line where they serve people. Lemonis whats the most number of soups you have in one day, offered available . Dave we do up to nine. So, we have soup, salad, sandwich. Lemonis whats going on on that board . Dave i bought a new one, but its too big. So thats gonna be the new look, assuming its not all faded like that. Lemonis i want to taste what youre known for. Dave okay, well, i would start with the africanpeanut and chicken. Lemonis it does have peanuts in it . Dave yes, Peanut Butter. Lemonis Peanut Butter . Its heavy. Its thick, you agree . Stephanie yeah. Lemonis typically, when i order soup, im looking for a lighter meal. I dont think thats the case here, though. Stephanie this is the hungarian goulash. Lemonis whats in this thing . Dave that is pork cooked in bacon fat. Lemonis im sorry. Dave yeah, you heard me. Stephanie [ laughs ] lemonis its delicious, but it is heavy. I had one bite of 10 soups, and i felt like i had eaten for a week. Its too heavy. Whats the calories in this one . Dave we dont provide that. Lemonis you dont . What if somebody asks . Dave a lot of people do. Lemonis people ask for lighter options . Lemonis healthier options . Stephanie yes. Lemonis id like to see what a customer actually gets. I want the whole presentation. Stephanie the whole presentation. Lemonis thats the bread . Thats a big piece. Stephanie yeah. Lemonis what sort of sales data comes out of this system . By store . By soup . Dave no, we dont have it by soup. We actually do different price levels. Lemonis you need some sort of sales data. How many different soup recipes do you have . Dave 200. Lemonis what you need with good data is to understand what sells best, what sells terrible, what to add to the rotation, and what to take away. We might as well go back to an old fiveanddime store with a metal register with those big keys, because all hes doing is taking money and putting it in the register. What do you think of the presentation of this . Stephanie i like it. Lemonis i hate it. Dave okay. Lemonis i just think it looks this tin here, its all dented, and the tissue paper doesnt have any logos on it. Is this bread frozen . Dave no, we bake it here. Lemonis does it smell a little frozen to you, or refrigerated . Dave im not sure what refrigerated smells like. Lemonis well, this doesnt smell fresh to me. It doesnt taste good. Did you come up with the original recipes . Dave most of them. Lemonis and would you call yourself a chef . Dave yes, because ive gone to school and been trained. I managed a bakery and noticed how much soup they were making. That was actually how i met my late business partner, tim. He passed away a year and a half ago sudden, unexpected, very unfortunate. Lemonis oh, man. Dave i was always the food side of the business, and he handled paying the bills and things like that. I am dealing with his attorney and his estate. Theres no plan in place for succession or anything like that. Lemonis and how much did you guys own . Dave 50 50. Lemonis 50 50. What are they asking for . Dave a little under 100,000. Lemonis what do you think that 50 is worth . Dave i think its worth more. Lemonis well, i wouldnt tell them that. Dave no, certainly not. Lemonis if we could sit over here, that would be great. Soup, first, makes up how much percentage of the revenue . Dave about. 60 . Lemonis did you make that up, or you know that for sure . Dave its pretty close. Lemonis soups one. What would be two . Dave i dont know. Lemonis if you dont know your numbers, you dont know your business. Can i see the different sizes . But i need to do business with somebody, not just eat their food. What does it cost to make this . Dave umm. Lemonis what are the margins on soups . Dave i dont know. Lemonis if your ultimate goal is to have more than five of these is that the goal . Dave yes. Lemonis how many would you like to have . Dave well, 50 is a number that comes to mind. Lemonis whats odd about this place is it doesnt feel like its part of a chain. Theres no real energy to the place, and theres no clear presentation of food, and the menu board isnt clear. Whats even worse is that the owner cant even tell me what sells and what doesnt sell. If this thing was gonna be nationally franchised, theres a lot of work to do. How are you . ¿todo bien . Where are you from . Stephanie mexico city. Lemonis and where are you from . Veracruz . Oh, wow. So, what do you love about this place . Tell me your background. Stephanie my husband and i met dave, and we tried his soups, and we just fell in love with it. Lemonis he works here now . Stephanie yeah. Lemonis so, who do you report to . Stephanie umm. Long story. Um. Lemonis why dont we go outside . Stephanie sure. Lemonis yeah. So, who do you report to . Stephanie dave. [ laughs ] lemonis why do you say it like that . Stephanie uh. Well. Lemonis is there something more to the story . Stephanie well, there is somebody that works with us. Her name is grace, and shes also working along with me with this store. Lemonis oh, she works here . Stephanie i dont know whats going on with her. Lemonis i definitely sensed that her body language changed when this topic came up, and it prompted me to say, are you telling me everything . No . Stephanie no, ii just like i said, im not sure, um, whats her position here. Lemonis stephanie seemed reluctant to tell me exactly whats going on, so im gonna talk to other employees at other locations. Lets jump in the car and get to bay view. Dave okay. You know how to get there . Lemonis yeah. Im a marquette grad. I know how to get to bay view. [ bell jingles ] whoa its a lot bigger. This feels very different. This was the original one . Dave yes, 2004. Lemonis im feeling a little bit better as i visit the bay view location because you can tell theres a little bit more thought that went into this. The space is bigger, you see the full kitchen, it looks clean, but i still dont know what the story is. Like, what exactly is dave trying to sell here . Is it a concept or is it just a local soup spot . How you doing . Im marcus. Kevin good. Kevin. Lemonis kevin oh, hey i think i just met your wife. Kevin yes. Lemonis shes, like, all energetic and excited. So, what happens here . Kevin this is where we make all our soups and products for sandwiches. Lemonis okay. Whos in charge of the kitchen here . Dave mayra. Lemonis are you mayra . Mayra yes, its me. Lemonis how you doing . Im marcus. Mayra im mayra. Nice to meet you. Lemonis so, youre the jefe of the kitchen . Mayra yeah. Lemonis is this bacon . Dave sure is. Lemonis and what is this . Dave these are the dumplings. Kevin secret dumpling, man. Lemonis whats the secret. Kevin well, the secret is very good. I give it a little stir. Lemonis now, how long have you worked here . Kevin ive been here a little over five months. Lemonis what is your role . Kevin its kind of been changing. I was supposed to be regional helping him oversee five locations and get him some structure. Lemonis did he need structure . Is it hard saying it with him standing there . Kevin no, its not. I already told him. Lemonis oh, i know. Kevin i want to create a better people culture throughout the restaurants, and he needs to let me do that. Lemonis what does that mean . Kevin he needs to trust me. Dave i dont want to just turn him loose to go visit the stores. I want to know what hes up to. Lemonis how do the stores get human contact, and who do they get it from . Dave a lot of phone calls, a lot of texts. There is communication. Lemonis humcontact. Who tells them theyre doing a good job . Who gives them a hug . Who does all that . Kevin uh. Grace was helping out with that, as well. Lemonis whos that . Kevin grace. Lemonis she works with stephanie . She handles some other stores, as well . Kevin randomly. Lemonis whats that . Dave shell be leaving, so shes not gonna be a part of this. Lemonis oh. Okay. This whole grace thing is weird. Its like, people are talking about it, but theyre not allowed to talk about it. Daves shushing everybody and telling everybody to be quiet. Whats this grace thing all about . This is low fat . Mayra no, with the cheese. Lemonis and so, if you have a problem, who do you call . Mayra grace. Lemonis does grace work for kevin . Mayra i really dont know. Lemonis its confusing. Mayra yeah. I dont know what happened. [ chuckles ] yes. Lemonis hey, kevin. Kevin yeah. Lemonis what is the grace thing . Kevin i have no idea. Maybe its like a brothersister thing, where they cant get along, and then they get along. Lemonis do they fight here at work . Kevin ive seen arguments. Lemonis you have . Kevin yeah. Its been dysfunctional since i got here. Lemonis it has been dysfunctional . Kevin yeah. Lemonis its odd. Kevin yeah. Lemonis anything else i should dave did you get all your information out of kevin . Lemonis i didnt get a lot of information out of kevin that was useful, no. I learned a few other things, but well talk about those oneonone. So, i want to go to the Public Market. Can we head there . Dave sure. Lemonis the Public Market is a coop of individual vendors. The soup market makes its soup bases for all five locations here. So, this is where you make the stock. Dave yes. Lemonis wheres the. Dave no, we dont stir it. Lemonis just let it sit . Dave no, if you do, youll make it cloudy. Lemonis okay. Is it me, or is it odd that daves wife is here again . Maam, would you like some soup . I know who you are. Are any of these your recipes . Jill oh, i dont cook. I work fulltime, and we have two kids, so. Lemonis youre plenty busy. Jill yeah. Look, i get the fact that daves wife was at hales corner, they were excited, they wanted to meet their potential new business partner. I got that. Nice to meet you. See you soon. But i didnt think it would be, like, two hours from now. How weird is that . Does your wife come to work here every day with you . Dave no. Never. Lemonis why is she here today . Dave support for me. Lemonis is that the reason . Dave and to keep grace away. Lemonis what is that about . Dave im not gonna talk about it on camera. Lemonis but i gotta understand it. It just seems odd to me that, like, youre skirting this issue, and i think the challenge that i have is if were dave you know what . Im not talking about it. Lemonis what is the big secret . I dont care who she is or what she does. I didnt come here to invest in anybody but you. Dave then why is it becoming an issue . Lemonis because everybodys talking about her, except you, and so it makes me uneasy. Dave im not im not gonna talk any more about her. Lemonis did you see how that even makes it weirder for me . Dave next subject. Lemonis why are you getting so angry at me about it . Dave all im gonna say is, i dont want to talk about it. Lemonis why did you call me . Dave cause i thought you could help. Lemonis i am gonna help. Dave but if this keeps festering and coming up, im not interested in talking about it. Lemonis dave, what is it that keeps festering . Dave marcus, i like you. Lemonis well, you obviously dont. Dave i think youd be great for this business, but this does not interest me anymore. Lemonis dave, what did they do to you thats making you so upset . Dave you know what . I appreciate your time, thank you. Im sorry you wasted it. I have no interest in pursuing this now. Lemonis hello, maam. We cant have customers back there. Im sorry . 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Every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected, to do the extraordinary. Take your business beyond. Dave i have no interest in pursuing this now. Lemonis dave storms out instead of just telling me who this grace person is, and, quite frankly, i didnt appreciate his level of immaturity. Im not moving forward with dave until i get some answers. I try his cell, leave him a message. Hey, dave. This is marcus. Im not sure where you went. Im not sure why you reacted the way you did. I stood around there out of respect to him. And an hour later, he finally calls me back. So, what id like to do is put that behind us. Lets get back to work. The fact that hes giving me this answer that shes gonna be leaving doesnt mean that i just wiped it off my memory bank. I just put it off to the side. Lets dig into the financials, and lets understand the business a little bit. Enough about grace, more about business right now. And so, when i dig into the numbers, its clear to me that youve proven that you could generate revenue. 1,850,000 in revenue, and how much debt is in the company today . Dave 85,000. Lemonis what about any money owed to tim . Dave we had come to an agreement on about a 100,000 buyout. Lemonis so, theres 185,000 of liabilities, and the consolidated margins, probably somewhere around 52 , 53 . They should be closer to 70 , 72 . Look, im a big fan of soup and i love to eat it, but i want to make sure it has really healthy margins. In order to close the gap between 52 and 70 margins, the soup market could use more costeffective ingredients, without compromising quality, and make sure items are priced properly. Right now, dave doesnt even know how much it costs to make a single serving. Making those adjustments would give him an extra 18 points of margin. With the current 1. 85 million in gross revenue, that would be an additional 333,000 of gross profit. Im excited about the opportunity to get in here and work with you but. Let the other people that work in the business do their thing. You got to trust people. I want to do business with you, but im not easy to do business with. We have a 100,000 problem with the estate, 85,000 problem in terms of your debt. And we probably have a 130,000 problem in terms of, we want to brighten up some of the stores and update them a little bit, rebrand them. I want to put a salespad program where you know everything thats happening at all stores. You press a button boom. So, my offer is 315,000, and i want to slide in as your 50 50 partner and just take out the estate. Dave i mean, saying you want to put money into the store id be interested to see what that looks like. I mean, are we gonna get a concept before we. Lemonis no. My offer is 315,000 for 50 of the business, and im 100 in charge of everything. Dave of course. Lemonis of everything. Dave of course. Lemonis we got a deal . Okay. Dave thank you, marcus. Lemonis okay, my man. Im excited. Are you excited . Dave i am. Lemonis oh, okay. Stephanie hi lemonis hello. I thought we could get everybody together and have a little chat. Dave all right. Oh, everybody, come on out. Lemonis so, yesterday, dave and i made a deal for me to invest 315,000 in the business, and well invest in new technology. We want to work on our presentation, we want to change the front of the store so that 5 stores can turn into 50 stores. cause i didnt come here to invest in 5 stores. Thats boring for me. And then were gonna figure out how to make the soups a little healthier. Kevin [ laughs ] lemonis people, when they see these colors, they know that its fresh. We dont tell the story that theres an amazing chef that created all these thats you. Theres no artificial ingredients. You have to tell this story. Everybody excited . All yeah lemonis all right, lets go to work stephanie im ready. Dave thanks, guys. Lemonis before we spend a bunch of time making healthy soup options, we need to find out how unhealthy the ones that he has now are. I wanted to bring you here and test the soups. Whats the calorie intake, wha