And create a few products. Welcome to your new store. Nicolas oh, my god. Channa i owe my life to this company. Lemonis that is the reason that im here. I spend hundreds of days a year working on these companies. Why didnt you do it . Tony i thought that we did. Lemonis holy [bleep] but we cant always fit everything im thinking into the show. Tonight, were gonna give you an inside look at a very controversial episode from season 2 swansons fish market. Gary we called that guy up and told him well pay him tomorrow lemonis but you didnt tell me that he was foreclosing the foreclosure action started before i even got here do you not have anxiety from this episode . Amber no. I dont. Lemonis over the next hour, im gonna take you behind the scenes to share with you what i was actually thinking during filming. Its a really nice building. Gary well, it didnt look quite like this, cause it burned down. Lemonis and how much was the total loss . Gary over 1 million. Lemonis how much did the insurance pay . Gary 1. 2 million. Lemonis dont you think thats weird . He got more from the Insurance Company than his loss. Amber right. Lemonis in that moment, i put that nugget in the back of my brain. Whered the money go . Share some secrets. 1 million. Gary give it to larissa. Amber we should probably explain that she got mad at the end of this cause the deal didnt happen. Lemonis she put this Facebook Post out there that the show was bullsh[bleep] amber well, no one paid attention. Lemonis i cared, because it challenged the integrity of what we do. And give you an honest assessment of my decisions. So, when things get tough, you make sacrifices. Youre asking these guys at the front to take money out of their pocket and buy the shrimp and buy the fish, and you got a 500, 600 car payment. You cannot be driving a luxury car. I know that i wasnt an owner in swansons fish market, but i felt a responsibility to actually fix their path. Amber yeah. Lemonis my name is marcus lemonis, and this is an inside look. Man reading all around. Man 2 audio scape. Lemonis tonight, were gonna give you an inside look at a very controversial episode from season 2 swansons fish market. You remember that one . Amber oh, i remember. Lemonis and do you remember all the things that happened after the episode aired . Amber yep. Lemonis were gonna talk about all of that the text messages, the Facebook Post. All the stuff they tried to say didnt really happen, were gonna address it. Amber yeah. Lemonis i always thought that something smelled fishy in their business. Amber no. Lemonis swansons location seems great. Its on one of the busiest streets in fairfield, its in a beautiful building, and theres two other businesses next door. Nice jacket, dude. Spencer morning. Lemonis how are you . Im marcus. Spencer spencer. Lemonis hey, nice to meet you. Spencer you, too. Lemonis im marcus. Paul how you doin, marcus . Im paul. Lemonis nice to meet you. Paul good to meet you. Lemonis wow. A lot of good stuff. Spencer yeah, were working on it. Lemonis is gary, the owner, around . Spencer yes. Ill go get him. Hes in the office. Lemonis okay. The place is definitely underutilized. I look to the left, and theres this big counter with nothing on it, nothing merchandised on it. It definitely has room for improvement. Paul i mean, this is a great place. I love the job and everything. Its just, sometimes it gets a little bit stressful when you dont know whats going on. Lemonis what kinds of things are you paul like money, really, to be honest with you. Sometimes, were asked if we mind waiting for our checks a week or two. Weve had problems paying for product, so weve all pooled our money together on several occasions. Lemonis people that work here . Paul yeah. Amber pause. Oh, my gosh. When have you ever heard that happening in a business . Lemonis never. Amber that employees have pooled their money together to afford product for the business . Lemonis while it was stunning to me that it happened, it was impressive that it did happen. Think about how much people had to like working there to be willing to do that. Amber right. Yeah. Lemonis how are you . Gary good. Lemonis im marcus. Gary im gary. Lemonis gary, nice to meet you. Gary you, too. Lemonis this is an unbelievable location. How long have you been here . Gary 41 years. Lemonis wow. And who started the business . Gary it was my dad. Lemonis and do you guys rent this property . Gary no, we own this property. Lemonis how much did you buy this property for . Gary way back when, it was 450,000, and i bought it from my dad for 600,000. Lemonis its a really nice building. Gary well, it didnt look quite like this, cause it burned down. Lemonis remind me a little bit. When did this fire happen . Gary 4th of july, 2009. It was 100 loss. Lemonis and how much was the total loss . Gary over 1 million. Lemonis how much did the insurance pay . Gary about 1. 2 million. Lemonis so the loss was 1 million, but they paid 1. 2 million . Gary yeah. Lemonis okay. Dont you think thats weird . He received more than his loss. In that moment, i put that nugget in the back of my brain. Hes called me here. Hes low on inventory. His employees are putting money into the business, and he had an insurance loss of which he actually received more than his loss. Amber right. Lemonis so already, im like, all right. Amber so why are your employees putting money in the business . Lemonis and why are you missing inventory . Whered the money go . Amber right. Lemonis right. Okay. And do you have a mortgage on the property . Gary i do. Lemonis and how much is that payment a month . Gary about 3,800. Lemonis so, those people next door are your tenants . Gary yes. Lemonis and how much do they pay . Gary 3,000 a month. Lemonis each one . Gary each one. Lemonis so you have 6,000 coming just from them . Gary yes. Lemonis so more than covers your mortgage. Gary more than covers. Lemonis two facts so far he got more from the Insurance Company than his loss. Amber right. Lemonis fact 1. And he has positive cash flow on the building fact 2. Amber right. Lemonis and oh, by the way, what hes collecting in rent from the other two people happens to be more than his mortgage payment, which means you have no rent and you have extra cash. Amber so wheres the money going . Lemonis follow the money. Next. Amber right. Lemonis and whats the most profitable part of the business . Gary prep foods. Lemonis prepared foods . So how much fresh fish do you sell each week . Gary about 18,000. Lemonis 18,000. Gary yeah. Lemonis and what are the margins on that fish . Gary about 30 . Lemonis and then, how much in soups and prepared foods do you sell a week . Gary its equal about 18,000. Lemonis and what are the margins on that . Gary thats about 60 . Lemonis double the margins . Gary yeah. Lemonis and what does it take to run this place a month . What does it cost between mortgage payment, utilities, payroll everything . Gary i would guess 18,000. Lemonis so, garys explained that he does 150,000 a month in business. I asked him what his margins are, and he told me 30 on fresh fish and 60 on prepared foods. Half and half is the business mix. If i take 45 , which is the average of the two, across 150,000 in revenue, thats 68,000 in Gross Profit Per month. He then tell me that his expenses are 18,000 a month. That would leave him with 50,000 net profit at the end of the month. Theres almost 70,000 in gross profit, and the expenses are only 18,000 a month. Gary no, that was you know what . Thats way off. Just a lot of expense thats not associated with running the business. Lemonis so whats that . Like, give me an example. Gary those are loans, the mortgages. We borrowed money from people for construction, and i have vendors that i couldnt keep up with. Lemonis and is all that debt still outstanding . Gary yeah. Lemonis when im talking to gary about his numbers, what im kind of scratching my head on is, hes making money. I believe him on his margins, cause i did some research. And so the numbers arent adding up to me. Amber even now, sitting here today looking at this, its confusing. It doesnt i just dont like, i dont lemonis its not confusing. Its not transparent. Amber no, its not transparent. You dont know where the money went. Lemonis is it always this busy . Gary yeah. Yeah. Well, this time of day, yeah. Larissa dad, can i get you to sign some of these checks for the vendors . Gary oh, okay. Lemonis how are you . Im marcus. Larissa hi. Nice to meet you. Larissa. Lemonis nice to meet you. Larissa im garys daughter. Lemonis and youre the one that reached out to me. Larissa yes. I was shocked. I didnt think he would call. Lemonis what prompted you to come here . Larissa well, all the stress. My mom was doing the books, and she was so overwhelmed that she didnt have any help and neither did he, and lemonis you had another job . Larissa yeah. I was working retail. Lemonis was it a good job . Larissa yeah. I was getting paid well. Lemonis so you didnt really know what you were doing . Larissa not really, no. Lemonis and do you live close to here . Larissa no, i live an hour away. Lemonis you drive an hour each way . Larissa yeah. An hour each way every day. Lemonis why do you do it . Larissa my family keeps me going, and its hard watching people you care about struggle. Lemonis how is it working with your dad . Larissa its nice. Gary yeah, we get along fine. Her and her mom. Larissa yeah, no. Gary . Not so much. Larissa yeah. Well argue who we should pay first. This vendor, you know. Gary yeah, my wife will come in and yell at me, and bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, and i just leave. Lemonis yeah. Hi, im marcus. Are you sue . Sue marcus [ laughs ] lemonis nice to meet you. Sue oh i love it that youre here amber she drove me nuts. Lemonis she wasnt a truthteller. Amber unhunh. She was very scattered, and shed be, like, having sushi and Drinking Alcohol at, like, the middle of the day. [ both laugh ] yeah. Shes a hot mess, too. Lemonis well, maybe if you had to deal with me, youd have to have a drink. Amber i do deal with you, and i dont drink. Sue you dont know what weve been going through, marcus. Lemonis well, tell me about it. Sue gary can drive you nuts, the way he does his books. You know, when theres not enough money here, hell pull it out of the realty. And then, you know, thats the tenants checks that are coming you know . There are times that im like this. Lemonis and so are you out of the financials now . Sue i want to be. Lemonis but i thought your daughter did the books. Sue yeah. She just started. She could see it, you know, that i just dont have it in me anymore. Right now, we could only pay like one or two people a week, and thats it. Lemonis hows payroll getting made . Sue gary was able to put a few thousand dollars aside, and he made payroll last week. Lemonis its that tight . Sue marcus, im behind two months on my mortgage, i lemonis at home, you mean . Sue yeah. I get my verizon shut down every month. Lemonis the reality of it is, is the situations bad. Sue oh, yeah. Lemonis right . Sue mmhmm. Lemonis the conflict, for me, is finding the balance between what i was feeling uncomfortable about and what i was balancing that against how i was feeling bad. Amber right. Lemonis in that moment, im like somebodys crying. Youre trying to, like, all right. Dont worry about it. Well figure it out. But 13 seconds before that, i was like, theres Something Weird here going on. Amber right. Gary we have a beautiful office. Lemonis and so, this is all new . You built this building from scratch . Gary yeah. Lemonis after meeting with sue downstairs, im a little confused about the numbers. And now that shes passed them off to larissa, i want to get them all together so i could clearly understand what the numbers really are and what the Company Really needs. Gary i have a picture over here of what the old building looked like. Lemonis that ones like one you want to just take out of your memory. How did the fire start . Do you know . Gary they dont know. Lemonis what do you think . Larissa well, we had a fire in our warehouse. Lemonis so, wait a minute, there was two fires . Larissa yes. Gary it was hard to believe that it happened twice. Lemonis and how much did that fire cost you, to rebuild . Gary i didnt track it, but i want to say 30 grand. Lemonis how much did the insurance give you . Gary i think it was about 220,000. Lemonis and how much did it cost to rebuild here . Gary probably about 1 million. Lemonis and how much money did the insurance give you . Gary 1. 2 million. Lemonis with the warehouse, gary told me that he received 220,000 from the Insurance Company, but it only cost him 30,000 to rebuild. With the main fish market, the swansons location, he received 1. 2 million from the Insurance Company, but it only cost him 1 million to rebuild. That means that he got an excess of 390,000 from the Insurance Company. Im a little confused why theyre in such trouble. Larissa, was it a total mess when you got here . Larissa oh, god. It was such a mess. Thats why i needed somebodys help with it. No one helped me. Sue i talked to you on the phone. Larissa no, you didnt. Lemonis sue, im kind of getting the feeling that you really kind of left larissa with the bag in trying to figure all of this out. I mean, shes a young girl. Sue yeah. No, no. Not that bad as you might say. Larissa yeah, i was pretty much here alone every day, trying to teach myself. Lemonis gary, do you feel like sue left larissa holding the bag . Gary yeah. Yeah, she has. Lemonis i mean, you want the business to survive, somebodys got to teach her how to do it, instead of dumping it on somebody else. That, to me, is like, holy crap. Larissa im sorry. Lemonis what are you stressed about . Larissa just everything all the bills, and everything thats just been piling up. Its just so much. Ive been trying my hardest to help, and i just dont know how much more i could do, you know . Sue well, exactly. Why do you think im at home . Im dealing with the phone calls at home. Trying to persua gary mm, no youre not. Sue yes, i am. Persuade them, you know, to work with us. Thats what im doing. Lemonis what im frustrated about in watching this episode now is, like, i knew what i was gathering, and i knew what was adding up in my brain, and for some reason, i didnt just, like amber well, you hadnt seen stuff yet, in all fairness, marcus. You hadnt seen the finances. I mean, things were weird, but you hadnt seen stuff yet. Lemonis okay. So, i tell you what id like to start with is understanding this whole universe of debt. And so do you have that on a spreadsheet . So taxes, irs 33,000. Sue yes. Lemonis kaz mortgage 345,000 on the building. Gary correct. Lemonis im a little confused how a business that got a fresh start after receiving insurance money can be in such debt. Gary, sue told me that your mortgage is really pastdue, as well. Is that right . Gary at home, yeah. Lemonis is your mortgage paid here . Gary yes. Were in good shape. Lemonis what kind of car do you drive . Sue the bmw. Lemonis where do you get the money to pay it . Sue well, i lemonis out of the company . Sue they yeah. Lemonis you owe your credit card providers. You owe your vendors. You have a mortgage thats pastdue. You cant pay your employees on time. The employees are having to pay for fish themselves. Driving a bmw may not be a dealbreaker as it relates to their finances, but its a dealbreaker as it relates to sending a message and leading by example. It just isnt right. Do you have a profit and loss statement for the business . Larissa yeah. Right here. Lemonis so, 1. 8 million in total business. And the business, on paper, made 148,000. Gary on paper. Lemonis and so what it doesnt account for is any money that left the business to pay debt. From what i can see, swansons has a lot of business, and they actually make a decent profit. But between paying their mounting Credit Card Debt and sticking their hand in the till, that paper profit is really a cash loss of hundreds of thousands. 1 million. Gary give it to larissa. Larissa aww amber at the end of this, she said that your check was fake. Lemonis yeah. 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Lemonis we left the place, and i said to you, something definitely doesnt feel right here. You dont remember that . Amber i vaguely remember. Lemonis and you were like, you know what . Youre rushing to judgement too quick, and i dont like that side of you. Amber well, you do rush quickly a lot of times to judgment. Lemonis mmhmm. Amber youre not always right. Lemonis mm. Mm. Amber you can admit that, right . Youre not always right. Lemonis im not always right. But, comma. Amber you were right here. Lemonis yep. Amber yeah. Thats true. You were right here. Yes, you were. Lemonis this is a 40yearold family business. Its a long time. Its a lot of history. Its a lot of fish. Its a lot of customers. Its a lot of memories. Gary yeah. Yeah. Lemonis and those are to be taken very seriously. The struggle that i have is, the numbers are fuzzy to me. And with the numbers being as fuzzy as they are, no investor, particul