Lemonis while they overhaul their business. How many more seats can you pick up when you guys are busy . Maybe you pick up eight more seats. More importantly, their relationship. Jimmy basically every single thing ive ever said for you to do was, no, were not doing it that way. Were doing it my way. Lemonis . So they can heal from the devastating family tragedy that still hangs over everything that they do. Dante not everything has to be a fight. Lemonis we got to fix this tension between you guys. You lost your wife. You lost your mother. Do you guys want to lose each other . Im marcus lemonis, and i risk my own money to help businesses. I love investing in american businesses. These people are here because they care. Its not always easy, but i do it to create jobs, and i do it to make money. Man we have a deal. Lemonis lets rock and roll. Man 1 yeah man 2 lets do it. Lemonis this is the profit. I have a special attachment to Family Businesses primarily because i started off working in one, the car business, and it taught me how to navigate working with family, which can be tough, but also the same business skills i learned there helps me run a multibilliondollar company, so im always gonna have a soft spot in my heart for Family Businesses. Whats happenin . Jimmy marcus. Oh, my gosh. Lemonis how you doing, buddy . Jimmy hi. How are you . Lemonis good. This is a cool place. How you doing . Dante hi. Nice to meet you, marcus. Lemonis im marcus. Nice to meet you. Lemonis are you dante . Dante my pleasure. Yes, i am. Lemonis so father, son. Dante this is my father, jimmy. Lemonis thats the arrangement. Okay. Jimmy we own the building and the business. Lemonis okay. Jimmy so were a family with the building. And just dante down here. Lemonis so you have to pay your father rent . Dante right. Yeah. Jimmy sometimes. Dante and myself. Lemonis why sometimes . Jimmy sometimes i forgive him, you know, so. Lemonis but theres a balance between being his dad and being the landlord. Jimmy well talk about that. [ laughs ] lemonis so your dad named it after you . Dante yeah, i mean, but. Lemonis do you owe your dad money for it . Dante no, i dont. Lemonis he just gave it to you as a gift . Dante i guess you could say that, yeah. Lemonis did you have restaurant experience before this . Jimmy no. Lemonis did you have any restaurant experience . Dante i did as an employee, but never in a managing role or ownership role, so it was a first time for me. Lemonis overwhelmed . Dante at times, yeah, it takes over your life. Obviously theres days where i kind of hate what im doing, but. Lemonis im sorry that you sometimes hate it. Dante well, yeah, i mean lemonis its being honest. I appreciate the honesty. Dante yeah, yeah. Jimmy the problem is, he wanted to do things his way. Ive been in business all my life. So i try to keep him organized, basically, is what it is. Lemonis but hes not able youre not able to keep yourself org you need your dad . Dante no, no, no, no. Lemonis or youre just in his business . Jimmy [ laughs ] oh, no. Lemonis look, hate is a pretty strong word, but i have a feeling that dantes hate may stem from the fact that his father is always trying to control him and has maybe taken some of the fun out of it. Which one of you called me . Jimmy i reached out. Lemonis why did you reach out . Jimmy what happened was, we would grow. We were growing and growing and growing. We did a Million Dollars within, like, the first year. Lemonis wow. Jimmy and then we had to hire another chef. At the same time, we were remodeling the whole place. It took us six months, and were still recovering from it. Lemonis you may have lost some business in those months. Jimmy lost half the business. It went back down to the numbers where we started. Lemonis can i get a tour . Dante yeah, absolutely. Lemonis lets do it. Dante lets go. Lemonis how are you . Denise hi. Im denise. Lemonis nice to meet you. Denise nice to meet you. Im dantes girlfriend. Lemonis okay. What is your role here . Denise take care of the waiters and waitresses. I do their scheduling. Lemonis youre here every day of the week or. . Denise no, im not. I do have a fulltime job, as well. Lemonis what day is your day off . Denise um, i dont [ laughter ] lemonis what im worried about is that it seems like everybody is always coming in to rescue dante. Enabling people arent gonna make them better at business. Nice meeting you. Ill see you in a few minutes. Denise yes. Lemonis how you doing . Im marcus. Nick marcus, pleasure. Nick. Lemonis nick . Nice to meet you, brother. This is really a small kitchen. Its tight. Nick a lot of the equipment in here is very, very dated, so weve just been kind of doing the best we can. Lemonis its tough to work in here. Nick you get used to it. Lemonis what was strange is that im here around lunch time, and theres not really anybody here. As i walk around the inside of the facility, im underwhelmed. I cant tell if theyve given up or they dont care. But i cant invest in a business that dante has neglected. What would you call these two colors . Salmon and light salmon . Dante salmon. Lemonis lets the three of us go outside. And as i go around the outside of the property, im seeing weeds everywhere, crap hanging from the trees. The parking lot looks like garbage. Now, i can be tolerant for certain things, but disrespecting hardearned assets is not one of them, and so im gonna put him through the paces. What would you rate the property today, aesthetically . Dante uh, 5 out of 10 . Lemonis a 5 . Whats giving it even a 5 . Like, walk me through what makes it a 5. Look at your order sign. That look good to you . Dante no. Lemonis does this sign look nice to you . Dante no. Lemonis does that banner in the tree look good to you . Dante nope. Lemonis does the mailboxes like this look good to you . Dante no. Lemonis all these weeds, all this trash . Dante no. Lemonis if you pulled into a restaurant with your family and you saw this, what would you do . Dante id be turned off a little bit. Lemonis turned off or turned around . Dante yeah, turned around. Lemonis i dont think you care. Dante i absolutely care. Lemonis i dont think you do. This place looks im sorry to say, it looks trashy. Jimmy but you could a Million Dollars fixing everything up. Lemonis unhunh. It doesnt cost a Million Dollars. Jimmy if it doesnt work out, he loses his total investment. Its a bad, you know its a bad situation. Lemonis okay, jimmy, heres the deal. It doesnt take an expert to know a few basic things, like keep your place in order and keep it clean, and if you say that its not your business and its dantes, then put your foot up his ass and make sure that he keeps his place clean. Its time to start treating dante like a Business Owner, not a kid playing one. So maybe youre coddling him. Jimmy but i do know the burden he has. Lemonis whats the burden . Hes a Business Owner. Jimmy yeah, i know. Lemonis join the club. So, dante, i want to try the food. Dante yeah, yeah, yeah. Lemonis lets grab a menu. Dante sure. Lemonis okay. Waiter all right. Ravioli. Lemonis any time i go into a business, i want to understand the people, the process, and the product, but now i want to do the most important thing in a restaurant, which is taste the food. Good portions. Dante oh, yeah. Lemonis the food is unbel i dont think ive ever eaten this much. The food is amazing. I am stunned by how good the food is, considering how poor the environment is. Like, if i could move this restaurant to new york city, wed be millionaires. Business lose money today . Jimmy its just we dont see any profit cause we keep putting all the extra into the business. Lemonis it comes out of your savings . Jimmy yeah. Dante yeah. Lemonis and how much have you put in in the last year . Dante probably around 100 grand. Lemonis 100 grand . Wow. Dante yeah. Lemonis i wanted to understand whose idea it was for you to get into this business, cause it was a little unclear to me. Was this your idea or your dads . Dante oh, um, it was kind of both of ours. He wanted me to get a business. I wanted the same thing. Lemonis why wasnt he comfortable with you just doing your own thing . Dante he was a single parent. So he kind of felt more responsibility. Lemonis what happened to your mom . Dante uh, she passed away in 9 11. Lemonis how old were you . Dante i was 9 years old. I remember every second of that day. That day, she happened to be in the towers and. Yeah, and thats what happened, so. Lemonis im really sorry. Dante yeah, i appreciate that. Yeah, it was a sad time, for sure. It was just, like, a pictureperfect family, and then Something Like that happens, and it just gets ripped away from you. Lemonis you and your brother . Dante yeah. Lemonis and so your dad got left holding that bag. Dante right. Lemonis look, ive never experienced the loss of somebody in a tragedy like jimmy and dante have, but i can understand why jimmy coddles his son, and while hes micromanaging and creating a lot of tension between him and dante, its because he cares so much about his son, and he feels a tremendous amount of pressure for his son to succeed. You know, i wasnt aware of what happened when he was a kid and how he lost his mom, you lost your wife. Jimmy yeah, its its hard for me to talk about that. Lemonis yeah. Jimmy you know. She was the best. She was great. We had the greatest life you could imagine. Lemonis how long were you married . Jimmy 19 years. We had everything. We had two beautiful kids. [voice breaking] you know, we had a good marriage. And. It was very hard. Her father got ill, and she was gonna visit him at the hospital. So she didnt go to work, and she had important meetings that she was gonna be missing. She said, im gonna run across to the World Trade Center and check on the people that were supposed to be at the meeting, and then ill come back to the hospital. So she went there for a few minutes, and thats what happened. So, what little compensation i got for them, i gave it to them because they lost their mother. Im sorry. Lemonis dont be sorry. Jimmy and thats why i felt he could do business cause he had some money from that, and i said, go ahead. Lemonis and so the money that you bought the business with was part of the money that came from your moms passing . Jimmy i didnt want to keep that money. I gave it to the kids because, like i said, it was blood money to me, and they had no mother. So i didnt want them to wait until i was dead to have the money, and then it was just sitting there, and he couldnt find a job. What am i supposed to say . Id do anything for him. Id jump in front of a train for him. Im sorry. Lemonis this business exists because of the tragedy that dante experienced with his mother. It has tmean something. People know the reason you bought the business . Jimmy we dont tell anybody our business, you know. Lemonis your background, motivation . Jimmy no. Dante no. Lemonis im a big believer that, in business, consumers will rally around a cause or a story or some personal connection they have. People like to do business with people. Its okay that you amplify who you are. Thats how i make a connection with you. Youve really been a mother and a father for. Jimmy for 19 years now. Lemonis you have the financials that we can look at . Jimmy yeah, yeah. Lemonis wanna go get them . Jimmy yeah, sure. Lemonis are these the books . Dante yeah. Keep track of how much cash, how much was on credit cards. Lemonis this does not look like a financial statement. This looks like a bookie. Jimmy yeah, i understand what youre saying, yeah. Lemonis like, this is how a bookie keeps numbers. Jimmy we dont have it printed out. Lemonis so how much did it do last year in revenue . Dante uh, about, like, 460 lemonis no, no. I dont want an about. I want the exact number. Dante um. Lemonis can you guys add it up . Jimmy hes just busting our balls now, i think. Dante all right. Well, yeartodate for. Jimmy from january 18 to december 18. Dante january 18. Jimmy you should have it in the book. I got it right here. Heres january, february. Dante i think part of thats in that book. Jimmy i got it right here, january 18. What are you doing, changing the book . Dante it starts in this book. Jimmy heres where we start. Dante you want to see where were at currently . This is weekbyweek. The big circled number is what we did for that week. Jimmy this is june 19. Lemonis it almost looks like two people got into the Restaurant Business that had no idea how the Restaurant Business actually works. That may be the first indication of why business is down. Im im like, no, thank you. Dante this cant be right, but. Jimmy you have to do it again . Dante im just saying, trying to add jimmy just no. Do it again. Dante thats it. Jimmy thats it. I came up with 505. Lemonis 505. Dante we should be doing just under 1. 2 million a year. Lemonis all right. Do you know what the margins are on the 500,000 . Dante no. Lemonis do you have a pos here . Dante yeah. Lemonis typically what would happen in a business like this is the pos system would feed right into quickbooks. Jimmy into the what books . Lemonis quickbooks. Its an accounting platform. How are you keeping track of all of it . Dante oh, our Bank Statements and. Jimmy yeah, yeah. Lemonis no, but on a financial statement, how are you keeping track . Jimmy weve never had to show anybody a financial statement. Lemonis what about showing yourself, like, to make decisions . How do you make decisions without good information . Dante just by me being here all the time and seeing what everybody orders and. Lemonis look, guys. Heres the deal. Normally, right now is usually when i would make an offer. Unfortunately, i. Jimmy every single thing ive ever said for you to do was, no, were not doing it that way. Were doing it my way. No matter what i said was, no. 99 was. Dante it wasnt no. I just had a different idea of going about things. Jimmy it was no. Save on last minute gifts with target holideals by sam smith] save on samsung tvs. Save on toys. Save on sweaters for the family and more. Doors open until 10pm christmas eve. Only at target. And my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. Ahh no, come on. I saw you eating poop earlier. Hey my focus is on the road, and thats saving me cash with drivewise. Whos the dummy now . Whoof whoof so get allstate where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. Sorry hes a baby lemonis writing a checkusiness thand investing in. Le however, i do want to help you guys. Get the outside of the business right, get the inside of the business right, and come up with a plan that will actually get you to 1 million. But with process. Dante okay. Jimmy yes. Thank you. Lemonis i give him a lot of credit for putting the most important asset that he ever received, the memory of his mother, on the table, fully at risk with the possibility of losing it, and because of that, i dont want to take equity out of the company, but i am interested in teaching dante because i want him to believe in himself and have pride in what hes doing. So tomorrow well get started . Dante lets do it. Lemonis why dont we go lock the door . I dont want anybody else coming in. Look, we need to reintroduce dantes to the neighborhood and have the locals give it a second chance, but what we also need to do is help dante find his motivation for why hes doing this. Lets get everybody together. How do people know about the story behind the family, the owners, who owns it, why theyre here . Does anybody know that . Do you knanything about them . Camryn i thought it was something to do with his father. Lemonis jimmy, will you tell her the story . They work here, and they dont know the story. Jimmy dantes mom died on 9 11, and i raised him and his brother by himself, and i wanted to help him out. And thats why we ended up here. Lemonis did you know that about dante . Camryn no, i didnt. Um, i have a lot more respect for him now. Obviously, i did already, but. Lemonis this idea that business isnt personal is total b. S. Business is personal, and to have the employee understand the genesis of the idea, the purpose behind the business, and how much it means to you will give them maybe some pride, as well. Why is that we do what we do . Is it just cause you want to sell pizza . Dante . Dante no. I also want to prove to myself that i can run a business just like my father did growing up. Lemonis prove it to yourself or prove it to him and yourself . Dante a little bit of both. I just feel like he thinks im incapable. Growing up, he tried to make decisions for me. Jimmy like . You have an example . Dante the decision of picking my own house was not even up to me at 26 years old and. Jimmy so, when we looked at the house, i didnt say to you, dante, what do you think . You like the house . You think we could do it . Denise you said, i like the house. This is where im gonna live. Jimmy you werent there. Denise i was there. Jimmy if somebody ever built me a house, i would not complain about it. Ive dedicated my whole life to you and your brother and get talked to like i do. Lemonis part of the reason why im so adamant about doing this is because i feel like dante gave up on the business because of his relationship or frustration with his dad, and i feel like jimmy gave up on the business because of his frustration with dante. I dont plan on solving this right now. It may take a little bit of time. Were all gonna Work Together to clean up the place, and the restaurant is gonna be shut down for at least a week. All right . Lets go back to work. Dante sounds good. Lemonis so, what on this menu do you want to learn the actual food cost for . Dante pappardelle steak alfredo. Lemonis okay. Great. Any time i see a company thats generating revenue but not making a profit, theres two things that you want to look at what the gross profit is and what the expenses are, and so as part of that, i want dante to really start to dig into his food cost. I want him to go item by item so he can understand if you sell something for 5, and it costs 6, well, thats gonna be a problem. Dante we buy the pasta by the pound. We pay about 3. 50 per lemonis about or exactly . Jimmy that is a simple thing. Dante no. Exactly 3. 50 per pound. Lemonis so how much is that . Dante 1. 16. Lemonis so thats 1. 16. Dante okay. Lemonis whats the next ingredient . Dante 6 ounces of steak. Or, no, that was halfpound. Lemonis premade frozen steak. Dante yes. Um. I think that steak cost us 2. 75. Jimmy confirm the steak price. Nick thats definitely wrong. Jimmy so can you get the bill out . Nick its 4. 20. Lemonis oh, okay. Lets put that in. Im now starting to better understand why jimmy inserts himself all the time. Dante just kind of yeah, that looks like yeah, we could sell that for 12 or 13. Next item. Nick halfcup heavy cream. Lemonis okay. How much . Nick 56 cents. Lemonis okay. Next item. Nick one tablespoon minced garlic. 11 cents. Lemonis okay. Nick 3 tablespoons pecorino romano. 67 cents. 4 ounces of white wine is 28 cents. Lemonis what is the total . Nick the total is 7. 63. Lemonis please write that down. W