Im not talking about it anymore. I back them up, spending my own money. Its not always pretty. Man perfect flavor. Lemonis . But this is business. You got to trust the process. I do it to save jobs, and i do it to make money. Thanks for your business. This is the profit. Fairfield, connecticut, is a pretty new england town right on the coast of the long island sound, and swansons fish market is one of fairfields local institutions. For over 40 years, theyve been selling fresh fish, hot soups, and doing a little catering and, along the way, got their fair share of critical acclaim. Gary okay, youre getting the works today. Lemonis gary swanson jr. Took the market over from his dad and worked alongside his wife, sue, and they made a comfortable life for his family. But on july 4, 2009, a fire destroyed his original store. [ siren wails ] dispatcher code 6. Gary completely devastated. Lemonis not only did the family lose income for an entire year, but they lost a good portion of their customer base. Gary we definitely need to pay a couple of these vendors. Hopefully, we have enough money in the account right now. Lemonis when the store finally reopened, a year after the fire, gary was 900,000 in debt. Sue mondays deposit that should have went in on tuesday didnt go in till the following week. Gary im put against the wall. Lemonis sue is so demoralized by the downturn that shes spending less and less time at the store. Sue i need a break. Im reaching my boiling point. Lemonis . Forcing their daughter, larissa, to come home and work with her dad and help pick up the slack. This is a critical time for swansons. Gary i really dont know how much time we have left. Lemonis familyrun businesses like swansons are the lifeblood of this country, and i know with the injection of some cash and some improvements in their process, i can rejuvenate the business and turn swansons into a big fish once again. 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. 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 doing, marcus . Im paul. Lemonis nice to meet you. Paul good to meet you. Lemonis wow. You got a lot of good stuff. Paul yeah, were working on it. Man how you doing . Do you have 2 pounds of red snapper . Spencer no reds today. Man no reds . Spencer no. Man well, im gonna try some grouper today. 2 pounds. Spencer okay. Lemonis what else are you out of . Paul i believe we are out of tuna. Lemonis tunas kind of a popular fish to be out of. 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 that 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 yes. And helped them out. Lemonis how much are we talking . 100 bucks . Paul a couple hundred each. Lemonis in what business are the employees actually buying the inventory . They have bills to pay. This business is in real trouble. How are you . Gary good. Lemonis im marcus. Gary im gary. Lemonis gary, nice to meet you. 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. Do you mind if i come around . Gary oh, no. Youre welcome. Lemonis do you have a mortgage on the property . Gary i do. Lemonis how much is that payment a month . Gary about 3,800. Lemonis so, those people next door are your tenants . Gary yes. Lemonis 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 it. Lemonis swansons monthly mortgage payment is 3,800, but the rent they collect from the two tenants is 3,000 each, so swansons, after they make their own Monthly Payment, will still clear 2,200 each month, totaling 26,400 each year. They actually make money on this deal. So, you have a bit of a kitchen here. Gary oh, yeah. Lemonis and whats the most profitable part of the business . Gary prep foods. Lemonis prepared foods . Gary yeah. Lemonis so how much fresh fish do you sell each week . Gary about 18,000. Lemonis 18,000 . 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 tells me that his expenses are 18,000 a month. That would leave him with 50,000 in net profit at the end of the month. Theres almost 70,000 in gross profit, and the expenses are only 18,000. Gary no, that was you know what . Thats way off. Theres just a lot of expense thats 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 can see the customers outside. I believe him on his margins cause i did some research. And so the numbers arent adding up to me. You know what id love to do, is taste the soup. Gary okay. Spence, you want to give marcus the soup tour . Spencer sure. Lemonis soup tour. How does this stuff sell . Spencer great. This is swansons family recipe. Lemonis so, what is this called . Spencer this is bouillabaisse. Lemonis this fish is amazing. Spencer yeah, thank you. Lemonis im a little disappointed that gary hasnt expanded his prepared foods. The margins are double what the fresh fish is. If he can just have what i call attachment attaching one preparedfood item to every fresh item that he sells his business should go up markedly pretty quick. How you doing, sir . Do you come here often . Man i do. Lemonis what do you get . Is there a specialty that you love . Man i love this coconut shrimp. The stuffed clams i cant make them at home as good as he makes them here. I just wish he did more prepared stuff. Id like to see the man open a restaurant. Lemonis will you come help us wait tables . Ill wait them with you. Man aw, i dont know. Ill come to eat. Lemonis okay. Nice meeting you. Man thank you. 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 . Lemonis how are you . Im marcus. Larissa hi. 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 you 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 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 Lemonis nice to meet you. Sue oh i love it that youre here 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. Yeah. 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 can 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. Lemonis at home, you mean . Sue yeah. I get my verizon shut down every month. Lemonis the reality of it is, the situations bad. Sue oh, yeah. Lemonis right . Sue mmhmm. Lemonis the good news is, well figure it out, because what i know for sure is that i saw a lot of customers come through. This is an institution. We just have to figure out how to make money, okay . Sue yeah. Okay. 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 now that shes passed them off to larissa. I want to get them all together so i can 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 its 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 think it was about 220,000. Lemonis and how much did it cost to rebuild here . Gary probably about a million dollars. Lemonis how much money did the insurance give you . Gary 1. 2 million. Lemonis with the warehouse, gary told me they 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 no, 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 [ sighs ] im sorry. Lemonis what are you stressed about . Larissa just everything all the bills and everything thats been piling up. Its just so much. Ive been trying my hardest to help, and i just dont know how much more i can do, you know . Sue exactly. Why do you think im at home . Im dealing with the phone calls at home. Gary mm. No, youre not. Sue yes, i am. Persuade them, you know, to work with us. Thats what im doing. Lemonis sue, look, its clear to me that you need to take more of an active role in the business. Are you able to be here on a daily basis to take some of this burden off larissa . Sue yes. Lemonis the fact that i cant analyze these numbers the way i normally do makes me very uncomfortable. 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, i. R. S. 33,000 . Larissa yes. Lemonis kas 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. They owe their vendors 187,000, taxes 67,000, credit cards 30,000, utilities and services 44,000, and all mortgages at 595,000, totaling 923,000 in debt from a company that got a fresh start just a few years ago. How do you guys pay the bills at home . How are you surviving . Gary i will take money out of the deposits. I will take money, cash out, and give it to her to go to the store. Lemonis and sue was telling me downstairs that one of the things she struggled with is you were pulling from this fund and pulling from that fund. Gary yeah. Sometimes that would happen. And a lot of these expenses are just household expenses. Lemonis gary, so you told me that your mortgage is really past due, as well. 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 well, where do you get the money to pay it . Sue well, i. Lemonis out of the company . Sue yeah. Lemonis you owe your creditcard providers, you owe your vendors. You have a mortgage thats past due. You cant pay your employees on time. The employees are having to pay for fish themselves. Driving a bmw may not be a deal breaker as it relates to their finances, but its a deal breaker as it relates to sending a message and leading by example. It just isnt right. Do you have a profitandloss statement for the business . Larissa oh, 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 creditcard debt and sticking their hand in the till, that paper profit is really a cash loss of hundreds of thousands. This is a 40yearold family business. Its a long time. Its a lot of history. Its a lot a fish. Its a lot of customers. Its a lot of memories. 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 particularly me is gonna invest in a business that isnt cleaned up. Im not rolling the dice. This is not a parlay game. Im not gonna continue to just hope that it works out, because we havent demonstrated as a collective group that we can manage money very well. Its too dangerous. Its russian roulette. Gary well, then were wasting our time. Then theres nothing we can do. Lemonis or you have the option you sell the building. And so my offer is im willing to put 1 million up to buy the building. Which allows all of your debt to get paid off, own 100 of the business, and put working capital in the business and not have to lose sleep at night. Gary i dont want to sell the building. Giving up the building would be a mistake. Lemonis how much is the Monthly Payment . I feel like youre offended by me asking the question. Im kind of annoyed that youre offended. If you dont want the million dollars, sue, just tell me, and you guys can figure it out. neighbor yeah, so were just bringing your son home. dad ah greetings, neighbor. Neighbor boy. He really loves our wireless directv receiver. dad he should know better. Were settlers. We settle for cable. But let us repay you for your troubles. Fresh milk for the journey home . neighbor we live right there. dad salted meats . neighbor no thank you. dad hats then vo dont be a settler, get a 100 reward card when you switch to directv. Whewhat does it look like . Ss, is it becoming a better professor by being a more adventurous student . Is it one day giving your daughter the opportunity she deserves . Is it finally witnessing all the artistic wonders of the Natural World . Whatever your definition of success is, helping you pursue it, is ours. Tiaa. Lemonis im willing to put 1 million up to buy the building. Gary i dont want to sell the building. Giving up the building would be a mistake. And 1 million might not be the right number. Maybe its worth 1. 6 million. That wouldnt be a good deal. Lemonis and let me tell you how i arrived at that. 1 million, coincidentally, happens to clean every bill you have up and put working capital in your business. Gary but then we no longer have this future investment. Sue thats our security. Gary cant do it. Lemonis and if you had the ability to buy it back at a future date . Gary okay, well, you have my attention with that. Lemonis okay, at some point in the future, if you are able to save money from your profitable business or you decided to sell your business, you can then come back to me and buy the building back. I dont know how that doesnt seem reasonable. Gary well, now that youre saying that theres an opportunity to buy it back, i would be interested in that. Lemonis so, is that a deal . Gary yeah. Lemonis okay. Gary thanks. When do we do all this . Do we lemonis well. Gary oh, boy. Sue [ sighs ] lemonis 1 million. Gary give it to larissa. Larissa ohh [ laughs ] lemonis when i normally write a check, i allow the Business Owner to deposit that money right into their account for operations or equity. In this case, the check that im writing is gonna go into escrow. When the attorneys have confirmed that everythings clear, the money will be dispersed. Itll go to the banks first, the vendors second, and whatevers left after everybodys paid wil