And while he and his wife have overcome great challenges together. Corey we have five children. Two of them are in heaven. Lemonis . He struggles with giving her a say in the company. Laurie, this is your project. Corey no. Lemonis if i cant push him to rise to the occasion. Corey im not prepared to say, some new guy came in, now its different. Lemonis . His grand plans will never get off the ground. My name is Marcus Lemonis, and i risk my own money to save struggling businesses. Were not gonna 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. One of the things that appeals to me about nyc bagel deli is that people know it. Its been around a long time. Carlos two dozen . Corey a dozen and a half, carlos. Carlos all right, dozen and a half. Corey yeah, buddy. Lemonis but i also know that bagels have unbelievable margins. Carlos thank you. We appreciate it. Woman thank you. Carlos gentlemen men thank you lemonis so im meeting up with the owners at their north avenue location to learn more. Corey [ chuckling ] hey lemonis hey. Im marcus. Corey i know who you are. Im corey. Its nice to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. Corey yeah, yeah, yeah. This is my wife. Lemonis how are you . Nice to meet you. Youre the boss . Corey thats laurie, shes a hugger. Lemonis whos the boss . Laurie he is the boss. Hes the main hes the main. Corey i dont know. Laurie yes. Lemonis hi. How are you . Carlos hey. How are you . Lemonis good. What are the types of bagels that you have . Carlos 13 kind of bagels, you can show them behind me. Lemonis im gonna have everything bagel. What do you sell one bagel for . Corey 1. 29. Lemonis what does it cost to make one bagel . Corey about 10 cents. Lemonis in materials . Corey in materials. Lemonis and another 10 in labor . Corey exactly. Lemonis so thats part of the beauty of being in this business. Corey of course. Lemonis its high margin. Take your half. Corey okay, thanks. Laurie [ laughs ] man what can i get for you today . Laurie now, i have a bagel every single day. Corey its a good bagel. If it doesnt hurt here from chewing after a while, its not real. Lemonis the flavors amazing. I love the size. I love the weight. Its the consistency. Its a little overcooked. Corey in your opinion. I mean, weve been here for a while. 19 years. Were doing something right. People wait on line to get em. I dont think im gonna change the recipe just because you said its you know what i mean . In all fairness. Lemonis when you invest in a business, youre investing in product, youre investing in process, but youre first and foremost investing in people. Some are collaborative, and some are less so. I dont know if coreys open to change, but im gonna keep pushing until we find out. How do you think about what you put on here . Corey the fruit started off banana, orange, apple. Lemonis you sell a lot of it . Corey we do sell small amounts. Lemonis the front counter was stacked so high. It was bananas and cookies. I couldnt even see anybodys face. And by the way, none of the items were new york items. I dont even see cheesecake here. So this is i should not think about this as like a new york traditional deli. Corey yeah. Lemonis dont Pay Attention to new york city bagel deli . Why have italian capers . Corey you use probably a couple cases a week with your lox sandwich. So the rest of em sit here. We need one, hey, dump it in the thing. But i cant tell you the last time we sold one of these. Lemonis look, bagels have amazing margins, but its the ancillary products that will actually build on to the size of the order if the products that are there are things that people actually want to buy. So what are the locations . Were on north avenue. Corey this is the original. And then the second one, which is Dearborn Dearborn and grant, and the willis tower. Lemonis like a kiosk . Corey yeah, a little bit more than a kiosk, but. Lemonis not a full store. Corey not a full store. Lemonis and then the revenue out of this location . Corey this is good for about 95,000, 100,000 a month. Lemonis and dearborn . Corey about the same. Lemonis and willis . Corey 50,000 a month. I want 10 more of them. Lemonis [ laughing ] yeah. Corey yeah. Lemonis the fact that the dearborn and the north avenue location generate over 100,000 a month is pretty awesome. Im impressed that hes been able to accomplish that number with what i see. It tells me that the potential is massive. Youre gonna teach me today how to make a bagel, right . Corey right now im gonna show you. Look, here. Come on. Lemonis lets go man lets do it. Lemonis everybodys fired up about bagels. Man lets do it. Corey so this the mixer. Its giving you the consistency that will allow it to run through the bagel machine. Go, look, right into that hopper. Go. Lemonis i mean, its not light. Corey go. Throw it. There you go. Okay, start. [ machine whirs ] there we go. It will go back and forth, and it will cut 4ounce pieces of dough. Its gonna run through here, and its gonna be formed into a bagel. Lemonis how long you been doing this . Neto 16 years. Lemonis here . Neto yeah. Lemonis with him . Neto yeah. I was taught by a gentleman who was a fourthgeneration bagel maker. Lemonis all right, back out. Let me show you how to do this. Corey look at this. We got a replacement for you. Lemonis they look more like donuts. Holy [bleep] theyre moving too fast here, ill try to keep them corey now what are we gonna do . Theres too many coming out. Now to shut the machine shut it down. Shut it down. Neto there you go. There you go. Corey shut it down. There you go. All right. Now, get em into the water. The waters boiling, and then were stirring them up. You want to try it . Lemonis yeah. Corey this is actually going to cook the outside, which gives us the hard outside, soft inside. Its the traditional new york style kettleboiled bagel. And now youre gonna take as many as you can, walk em right over here, and dump em right here. There you go. Dump em there, and lets seed them. Go ahead. Seed em. And these bagels are put into the oven. Nice and easy. If we went to go look at this bagel and this bagel at the end didnt look good because it was maybe sideways, its up to us to throw it away. Lemonis why arent you making bagel chips out of all of em . Laurie amen. Thank you. Lemonis you agree with that . Laurie oh, we argue about it all the time. Laurie i would love bagel chips to be mass produced. Lemonis why are you arguing about it . Corey because theres a lot more involved. You got to cut em, you got to put em in and bake em, you got to bag em. Lemonis her point is is that she has an idea and shes just trying to. Corey oh, yeah. Lemonis we dont really need him for the bagel chips, do we . Laurie the bagel chips is a business of its own. Lemonis it could be lauries bagel chips. Laurie it would be its own business. Corey laurie and marcus. Lemonis no, lauries is fine. Corey no, no, take her with you. Go ahead. Laurie and marcus. Laurie i dont speak when youre speaking, so dont speak. Okay. Lemonis the fact that corey doesnt see the value of reusing existing product to make more money just tells me that if its not his idea, its not gonna go anywhere. Lets go to dearborn. Corey yeah, okay. Lemonis walking up to the second location, the first thing i notice is this lame, dinky awning that, by the way, doesnt even match the first location, and looks like it was here 25 years ago. How you doing . Corey good. How are you . Lemonis good. Corey whats going on . Lemonis this is a lot bigger. Corey its a little different. Lemonis do you mind putting your coat on for a second . Corey of course. Lemonis okay. I want to just go outside. Corey of course. [ horn honks ] lemonis on a scale of 1 to 10, and this is just me asking, how would you rate your facade, the light, the openness . Corey i see what youre saying. A zero probably. Lemonis yeah, its dark. Corey im glad you asked. Lemonis it looks old and not reflective of you because, i mean, youre corey aah i got you. Lemonis yeah. Do that again. Corey ah lemonis [ chuckles ] okay. Corey so look. Let me show you something. This is the cooler. Lemonis okay. Corey so ill fill this up. Lemonis but theres no mixing machine. Corey correct. Lemonis so where is the dough coming from . Corey the other store after i leave you tonight, im gonna go over there, me personally, put the racks of bagels that were made today in the truck, bring em over here. Lemonis you could do that over here, but you dont . Corey yeah, and is it really Cost Effective to have another machine and another staff . And then you dont have the consistency. Lemonis if corey wants to grow this business, hes not gonna be able to prep, boil, and proof mass production out of the very small kitchen on north avenue. Ultimately what this Business Needs is a commissary model a larger space that allows for the storage of Raw Materials, the prep of the dough, the boiling of the product, and the proofing of the product. And then it could be transported to individual locations in the chicagoland area, and the final baking process can happen there. The one big financial advantage to that is as he opens additional locations, they dont need to be as big. Im marcus. Ray hi. Ray. Lemonis nice to meet you. Ray nice to meet you, as well. Lemonis is corey easy to work with . Ray hes a good man. Knowing the type of guy he is and how kind he is, if you just break it down to him and let him know you need some help, hes the first one that wants to help. Hed make sure that the guys here are happy and they make enough money to take home for their family, and he might give them a little extra hours, and thats what makes him special. If youre not inside the doors with him, youll never understand. Lemonis can the three of us sit down for a few minutes . Corey sure. Lemonis i always want to understand the people side of it first. I mean, why are you in this business . Whats your motivation . Corey this is all i really have ever done. I started working at a bagel place that my father was working at in the early 80s in new jersey. And we went to florida with the first store and then even the second store. Then i met laurie. From florida to here we we have five children, two of them are in heaven. They had polycystic kidney disease, and basically its a disease that captures and covers your organs with cysts. But we came here because they promised us that there was a better chance to be on a list for transplant. So we literally left the house and the businesses. We rented a house here immediately. Lemonis how old were they when all this was happening . Corey my daughter was 19 months when she passed, and my son only made it a couple days, so. Lemonis im sorry. Corey yeah, no, its sad. Its horrible, you know . Lemonis im really sorry. Lemonis and your son, what was his name . Laurie corey. And my daughter was corri. Lemonis howd you survive that . I cant even imagine that. Laurie [ voice breaking ] when a child dies, theres like a 90 percent chance of people divorcing and it. Corey it made us stronger. Laurie . Brought us closer. Corey most people would have quit, but we had three other kids. Lemonis candidly, i am not a parent, and so i dont know what that feels like and cant even begin to imagine it. But even if i tried to imagine, i dont know that i could push through, and i give them credit for that. If i couldnt meet him and you were gonna try to describe him to me, how would you describe him . Laurie lovable, larger than life, very generous, kind, loyal. Lemonis great husband . Laurie yes. Lemonis great father . Laurie yes. Lemonis good boss . Laurie definitely. Lemonis nice to see you. Laurie hi. Good to see you. Corey whats up, boss . Lemonis my man, whats happening . Corey good to see you, man. Lemonis good seeing you. What is this chain youre wearing . Corey its a whole solid gold bagel with diamonds for the salt. Lemonis whered you get that . Corey laurie got it for me 25 years ago. Lemonis thats how long youve been in the business . Corey probably longer than that. Laurie youve been in the business since the day you were born. Come on. Its in your blood. Corey probably. Lemonis youre a bagel man through and through. Corey thats where it started. Originally, the stores were coreys bagels. Laurie which i like better than nyc, but thats okay. Corey but im gonna come back to that, okay . Coreys bagels for years and years and years. When we came here, it was new york bagel deli, which id purchased from a friend of mine. The name came with it. Lemonis you bought one location. Corey i bought one location. Lemonis and then you duplicated it and put it up again. Why didnt you just call it coreys . Corey i left well enough alone because it already had a you know, it had a presence. Laurie i wanted it to be coreys. Corey laurie, stop. Lemonis now, dont do that to her. Would you stop . Did you bring your financials . Corey i did. Lemonis can we look over em . Corey of course. Lemonis okay. North avenue 2015, 1,296,000 in revenue, made 152,000. In 2016, 1,335,000 in revenue, 181,000 in profit. Lets look over at dearborn, which is the second location. Thats the larger location. So in 2015, 1,255,000, made 191,000. 2016, 1,293,000 in revenue, made 210,000. Dearborn and north avenues. Corey yes. Lemonis . Both making money, and the willis location . Corey well, its just a pop up. Lemonis so well just focus on these two. Corey i agree. Lemonis and when i look at dearborn, i say to myself, how much more revenue can be drawn through there . How do i get promotional to drive traffic in . How do i make sure that when people come in, i raise the average order . That store should do 2. 5 million. Laurie easily. Lemonis not 1. 5 million. But sometimes i meet people that say, we cant keep the lights on, and we help them keep the lights on. In this case, its about growth, not about survival. So my offer is 200,000 for 25 percent. Corey a couple hundred thousand dollars is not gonna make a difference here where we are. Were in a very good position right now with the stores. Im very happy. And then honestly, i have to listen to somebody else for a couple hundred grand. I mean, youre making that face, but isnt that true . Youre gonna put money in and not just gonna sit back. Were gonna go at things together. Laurie but anything he says would be an asset. Corey well, i mean, again. Lemonis i know where the market is in chicago for this product. I know how poorly branded the business is. I know what loose ends exist in the business. I know how poorly merchandised it is. I know where the margins should be. Corey i just dont know. Im still thinking. Im just being honest with you. Lemonis what are you thinking about . Corey youre not just gonna say 200,000 and im not getting anything. What am i getting . Youre not just putting that in to say, okay, this is what were gonna do. I want to hear the rest of it. I want to see what all. Lemonis oh, you want my sales pitch . Corey i want your sales pitch. Lemonis im not selling you on anything. But im not opposed to putting in more money. Sometimes if the business is really working, i may fund up to two times, even three times the amount of the original deal. Corey but im in a position right now where i have to really weigh it out, and theres just a lot more that goes into it. Lemonis 200,000 for 25 percent. Corey and i said, no. Lemonis okay. So whats your counter . Corey we cant decide that at the coffee shop. That, we cant. Lemonis so, a week from now, youre gonna know more . What are you gonna know differently . Corey i dont know. Lemonis until we start going to work, how the hell are you gonna know . Corey i dont know. Lemonis i dont think that either of us are going to come to a deal tonight that youre gonna live with. Do you want to determine it now . You said you dont want to. Corey i dont. Lemonis its like, okay. Nice meeting you. Corey you, as well, sir. Pleasure and honor. Honestly, i mean that. Thank you for your time. [ door closes ] lemonis if your business is in trouble and you need my help, log on to. In business you have to be i then do it all over again. Us comcast business gives you fast, reliable internet on the nations largest gigSpeed Network. And now for a limited time, you can also get fast shipping with amazon business prime essentials. So no matter what comes next, youll always be ready to bounce forward. Get started with powerful internet and voice for 64. 90 a month, and ask how you can get one free year of amazon busines prime essentials on us. Call or go online today. Comcast business. Are going to come to a deal tonight. Nice meeting you. Corey you, as well, sir. [ door closes ] laurie i dont think you heard a word he said. You didnt hear a word he said. Lemonis to be honest with you, i never thought id hear from corey again, but a week after we met, i got a call from him asking me if we could meet. Corey ive asked you to call me because, first of all, i mean, without kissing your butt, i think youre wonderful with whatever you do. Ive looked you up, ive learned a lot about you. I think what you do to help people is awesome. Lemonis so i drove out to one of the suburbs of chicago and met him at his warehouse. How you doin, my man . Corey good, how are you . Lemonis good to see you. Corey its great to see you. Lemonis i wanted to hear what he had to say. We both left red beard that night a little confused about what happened, and youve had a chance to think. So for me, if you want to have this brand mean something, it has to really be a transformation. Corey okay. Lemonis and i really like you. Youre fun to be around. Corey yeah. Thank you. Lemonis okay. Laurie wow. Lemonis and at the end of the day, you love your family and you love your kids and you love the history so much. Laurie thats super sweet. Lemonis . That that is really what needs to be celebrated. Corey wow. Lemonis and i think you guys should change your name back to coreys bagels because i think its a better name. Corey we dont have to the sign doesnt have to say coreys bagels. Lemonis new york city bagel deli is generic. In order to scale the business, it needs to have an identity that is really marketable here. Corey so look, coreys bagels, look. Thats what it was in florida. I dont want it again. Laurie does. Lemonis do you want to move forward . Corey i do want to move forward. My gut says a business with Marcus Lemonis is a Better Business than without. Lemonis okay. So, my offer was 200,000 for 25 percent, and i had an 800,000 valuation. Corey ive put the valuation at 1. 2 million. Lemonis okay. So lets meet in the middle. Corey at a million. Lemonis yep. So now, every 100,000 represents 10 percent. Corey 10 percent, but i want to understand if you need to have a certain percentage. Laurie im gonna steal marcus jacket because im freezing. Lemonis here, here, here. Corey look at this. Laurie how is everyone like standing around . Corey look at this. And im just gonna reiterate for the same question. Lemonis yes, sir. Corey . I want you involved at a percentage thats gonna make you as. Lemonis pick a number, and ill react to it. Corey 25 percent, 250,000. Lemonis does that work for you . Corey it wo