Transcripts For CNBC The Profit 20170723

You should pack your [bleep] and you should go. 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 is the profit. Lets go to work. In 2009, steve sims started bodhi leaf coffee traders, a purveyor of the finest coffee beans grown in unique microclimates across the globe. Steve we go to the farms, we source all the coffees, import them, handcraft each batch. So, were looking for the best of the best out there. Lemonis previously, steve was in real estate. And he didnt know much about coffee before he got into the game, but he proved to be a quick study, buying only the best beans and reselling them here in the united states. Steve we import for guys that want specialty boutique coffee. They have nice shops, and they want good coffee. Lemonis today, he sells raw beans to other businesses. He has a retail line of roasted beans, and he operates two coffee shops. Bita 12ounce white mocha . Lemonis and his sales exceed 6 million a year, but the bigger bodhi gets, the more difficult it is for steve to keep up. Steve im sick of keeping the train on the tracks here. I feel like i cant grow anymore. Lemonis the company is chronically short on working capital. The Inventory System is nonexistent, and now his employees are frazzled and frustrated. Steve this is this is [bleep] up. Lemonis still, specialty coffee is one of the Fastest Growing industries, and steve knows the market inside and out. Together, im confident we could make a real splash. Bita hi, marcus. Lemonis hey, how are you . This place is huge. Bita i know. Lemonis what is your name . Bita hi. Bita. Lemonis bita . Parker parker. Lemonis parker . Nice to meet you. Whats special about the coffee . Bita its roasted inhouse. We have our roaster over there. Lemonis thats what that smell is. Its so strong. Bita we do also import as well. So, we have a whole warehouse that we can walk you through. Lemonis okay. Great. Ive been to a number of coffee shops, but i didnt expect to see a giant window and 10,000 square feet of coffee beans piled to the ceiling. I didnt expect to see a roaster in the middle of the room. It was a mecca epicenter of coffee. Steve marcus. Steve sims. Lemonis steve, how you doing . Steve great to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. Lemonis dude, i love your beard, bro. Your beard is awesome. Steve thank you. Lemonis if you ever shave it off, youre gonna go out of business. Steve yeah, exactly. Lemonis what makes you different from the other big coffee people . Steve number one, we only source highend, specialty coffee. So, we dont mess around with commodity coffee. We dont mess around with gasstation coffee. Lemonis super premium. Steve we look for the best of the best. Number two, we do source the coffee, so we kind of take the middleman out of it. Lemonis so, theres some extra margin. Steve little extra margin in there. Lemonis what is amazing about the Business Model that steve has built, is he has vertically integrated his entire process. Usually, a coffee shop like bodhi would buy its beans from a middleman who will have already marked up the product to make some money. But by bypassing that system and buying directly from the farm, he allows himself to make all of the margin, from the farm to the cup. On top of that, he has his hands on the process from start to finish, and thats what guarantees him quality control. Brando how are you doing . Lemonis good. What is your name . Brando i am brando, like marlon brando. Lemonis thats kind of cool. Im marcus. Nice to meet you. Brando nice to meet you. Lemonis so, how does that work . Brando so, these are the two pourovers that im gonna do. So, what im doing right now is im preheating the filter and im preheating the beaker. Lemonis okay. Brando if you dont preheat the filter, youre gonna get a papery taste in your coffee. Lemonis okay. Brando im gonna grind them right here. Were gonna do 20 grams of each. Lemonis okay. Brandos very technical. You would think he was getting ready to launch the space shuttle. Like, its an art for him. Brando okay. Okay, add it. Lemonis i just wanted coffee. I didnt want to go into the meth lab. Brando and theres your pourover. Lemonis this is a lot fruitier and sweetersmelling. It tastes good. It was very smooth, but it had a nice flavor to it. It was the best cup of coffee that ive ever had. So, who trains the different people that come to work here . Steve brando, head of the cafes. Brando director of cafes, sure. Lemonis okay. So, you run the whole store . Steve both of them. Two open, one in anaheim hills, which is about seven miles from here. Lemonis it looks like this . Steve very similar, no warehouse. Im also in whole foods, and i have all my bagged coffee in whole foods. Lemonis okay. Steve all right. Lemonis can i get a tour . Steve lets do it. Lemonis awesome. Steve so, this is our roastery. This is where we roast it all. Were roasting fresh every day. And this is jared. Jared hey, im jared. Lemonis jared, im marcus. Nice to meet you. Steve hes our head roastmaster. Lemonis so, can you walk me through the whole process, how it works . Jared absolutely. Lemonis okay. Jared so, this is green coffee. We start with the green, raw coffee. Each batch is weighed precisely for consistency, and then you throw it into the hopper of the roaster. It roasts for about 13 minutes. Lemonis so, do you do all the roasting for the entire company here, or is it just for this shop . Jared everything for the entire company is on this roaster. Lemonis so, if you grew your wholesale accounts, how would you fulfill that demand . Ronnie were almost maxing this thing out. So, were like were like right at the breaking point. Lemonis oftentimes, i go into businesses, and they have capacity, but they dont have the product. That is not their problem here. They have a great product, and i want to figure out how to deliver more of it. How much of the company do you own . Steve 51 . Lemonis who owns the other 49 . Steve i had two investors come in. I needed to buy more coffee. I was selling out of it, and i didnt have any more money. Each one of those green containers back there costs me 90 to 150 grand, and i had to paid for that up front. Thats why i needed investors. Lemonis what prompted you to get into the Coffee Business . Steve uh, i was flipping real estate from 2005 to 2009. Doing well for a while, then the bottom fell out from under me. I lost everything, except for the house i live in. And i have a family. So, i was looking for a way to support them, to be honest. It was a scary time in my life, and it was the last 60 grand i had to my name. So, my back was kind of against the wall. So, i had a friend that had a connection in sumatra for green coffee. Flew to sumatra, bought my first container. Didnt know if i was overpaying for it. Didnt know if it was good. And i came here and started coldcalling roasters in the area, and i got lucky. It was a great container. People were saying, this is the best sumatran coffee ive tasted. It was 63,000 for that container. That same container, today, costs about 120,000. Lemonis i wish youd have bought more. Steve i wish so, too. So, this is the warehouse. Lemonis holy [bleep] theres a lot of cash in here. Steve yes, there is. Lemonis theres a lot of green in here. Steve we import it for guys that want specialty coffee. Say you own four restaurants and you want good coffee in your restaurants. You come to a guy like me. Or ill do private label. We do that for a lot of guys right now. Lemonis its becoming even more clear to me that youre running two distinct businesses here. Wholesale selling green roasted bags then the other business is opening up these cafes. Steve yep. Lemonis this business can be best described by looking at a coffee plant. On the wholesale side, there are three branches. He sells raw beans to other roasters. He sells finished beans to restaurants and other roasters. And he sells finished, roasted bags of beans to retailers who want to capitalize on the Specialty Retail market. Then theres the retail side, the locations that he operates as coffee shops along with the beans that he sells direct to consumer. Look, theres a lot to understand here, but what i want to understand first is how the overall sales process works and how the team interacts together. Jeff marcus, im jeff. Lemonis how you doing, my man . Jeff hey. Lemonis nice meeting you. Jeff yeah, you too. Lemonis what do you here . Jeff been here from the beginning, and i handle the commercial accounts. Lemonis wholesaling . Jeff wholesale, yeah. This is my list of the accounts that i handle. Lemonis how many are there now . Jeff i think i have about 160. Lemonis what is your title today . Jeff green coffee sales manager. Lemonis so, you run all of the green coffee sales . Jeff im kind of the goto. I mean, obviously im handling the bulk, but, um, we have a bit of a team, but im the head. Lemonis and do you have a staff that works for you . Jeff per se. Its not very lemonis whats per se mean . Jeff you know, there have been squabbles. There have been personality conflicts. People are, you know, bickering. Lemonis when you guys have Staff Meetings, who holds the Staff Meetings . Jeff we dont have meetings. Lemonis none . Jeff no. Lemonis but if you and jared have a disagreement about something, who resolves it . Jeff uh, we tend to talk them out, and after a couple days, uh, maybe things cool off a little bit. Lemonis a lack of formal Staff Meetings may seem like a small thing to some people, but for any organization to be healthy, communication is at the forefront, especially with as much as bodhi has going on. And if people are arguing and fighting as much as jeff says they are, well, thats something really need to get to the bottom of. How often do you guys get together as a staff for, like, team meetings, like, you, jeff . Brando very rarely with jeff. Yeah, i mean, he just does green sell, and i just do cafe. Lemonis yeah. So, who do you report to steve . Brando yes. Lemonis who reports to jeff . Brando no one that i know of. Lemonis okay. Jared, so, im trying to understand, how do you guys communicate with each other . Jared we dont really have very many formal meetings, but me, brando, steve, were all here almost every morning. Lemonis okay. And jeff mentioned that nobodys having any meetings with the team. Jared jeff, you know, works from home some days. Hes not here all day. Thats frustrating. Ronnie i personally feel like theres tension there. But i lemonis tension around what . Jared ive had someone come up to me and ask for the Vice President and then ask for jeff. Lemonis does that annoy other people here as well . Jared yes. Lemonis does it annoy you . Ronnie yeah. Lemonis clearly jeff is frustrating people at work with his behavior, and thats something that needs to be discussed and dealt with. Hey. Steve hey. Lemonis but, ultimately, its up to the leader to make sure that his people are communicating with each other and that people are are working together well. The guys were telling me that theres not a lot of Staff Meetings . Steve no. We dont have weekly Staff Meetings. Ive never been good at that. I got a good team around me, good people. Now this business is kind of getting big, and thats part of the reason why im talking to you. Lemonis thats the reason you called me . Steve oh, yeah. Now is a pretty scary time in my life. Lemonis is it that bad . Steve yeah. The company is growing beyond my experience of running a company like this. I just i learn as i go. I always have. And i almost lost everything. It happened before, you know . Can it happen again . And now i got kind of some good people here that i want to take care of. Theyre like family to me. I feel like i need to be their leader. I need to i need to show them the way, and, uh, it gets scary sometimes. I want to do it right. [ voice breaking ] i didnt want to do this. I dont want to do this. I want them to know im strong. [ clears throat ] lemonis you have to have some confidence in yourself. Just cause you have tattoos and zz top gave you their beard does not mean that you cant be a good leader. Steve i appreciate that. Lemonis im telling you that. Your people will respect you more, okay . Theyll respect you more. Steve all right. Lemonis can you grab all your financials . Steve yeah. Lemonis hi, there. Tracey hi. Lemonis im marcus. Tracey tracey. Nice to meet you officially. Lemonis nice to you meet you. Steve i printed out or tracey printed out the key things i think you might need or if you need anything else. Lemonis what do you do in total revenue . Steve last year, we did 6. 6 million. Lemonis of the 6. 6 million, how much of it comes from the wholesale division of green beans . Tracey about 5. 2 million. Lemonis geez. Big number, brother. Steve thanks. Lemonis okay. The business made 77,000 bucks. 77,000 is not awesome, but its its a profit. Theres 3. 5 million worth of assets, but theres no working capital. Steve right. Lemonis do you feel like you have some big needs coming in a short period of time for cash . Steve yes. Central american harvest is coming again, and we have to buy all these containers, and thats a tough time. Lemonis how much do you think that is . Steve somewhere between 800,000 and 1. 2 million. Lemonis but you realize, and im not trying to. Steve i know. Theres nothing. Lemonis . There is no money here to buy anything. Steve oh, i get it. Lemonis but i think you should be very proud, very proud of what youve accomplished. I mean that. Steve okay. Lemonis you know, look, let me study the financials, and then well get back together. Steve okay. I appreciate you coming in. Its an honor. Lemonis thank you, brother. Steve yep. Lemonis ooh were in the middle of bean factory. Steve right in the right in the heart of it. Lemonis how you feeling . Steve nervous. I just feel like im a normal dude. So, i dont know. Its a lot of mixed feelings. Lemonis humility is a requirement for me to be in business with somebody, but theres a certain amount of confidence that i would like you to have to be partners with you. And im telling you now that i am gonna make you have confidence, and you got to be able to communicate. If you cant, its, like, people dont know what to do. Steve i agree. Lemonis steve, i wanted to go over the financials one more time again, if thats okay. Steve yep. Okay. Lemonis business is gonna do 6. 4 million in revenue this year and is gonna make approximately 100,000 in profit. Steve yes. Lemonis theres roughly 3. 5 million worth of assets. Steve okay. Lemonis but its short on cash. My offer is 1,750,000, and i would like 50 of the business. With this investment, the other investors are gonna get diluted by 25 . So, i would have 50 , you would have 26 , the investors would have 24 . Steve its not that i dont want to give. Its just it sucks. I feel like. I work all this time to get to here. Okay. At the start, i had to give up, whatever, 49 for 200 grand. Now here now here i am again. I have to do it to grow. And here i am, gonna dilute myself again. At what point, you know, is the, like, the reward there . Its just it sucks. Brando people have asked me, do i have to listen to jeff . cause he told me to do something. And i said, no, you dont. Hes not your boss. Lemonis why do you need to be telling anybody anything . You are not in charge you should have kept your [bleep] mouth shut. Steve its not that i dont want to give. Its just, here i am, gonna dilute myself again. And now im only gonna be, whatever, a 30 owner of my own company. Its just it sucks. Lemonis steve, i dont want you to feel like you got minimized too much, but everybody has to give a little. Steve okay. Lemonis my offer is 1,750,000. 1,750,000. I would like 40 for that, i would like you to have 40 for that, and i would like them to have 20 for that. Steve so, im diluting 10 . Theyre diluting. Lemonis but im also taking 10 less than i want. Steve okay. Lemonis i would like that 1,750,000 to stay in the bank for working capital so that you could buy inventory without having to think about it. Steve yeah. Okay. Lemonis and im not getting any tattoos. Im just telling you that right now. Steve [ laughs ] lemonis im not doing that. Steve okay. Lemonis we have a deal . Steve yeah. Lemonis so, steve and i made a deal for me to invest 1,750,000 into the business. I invested the money not to just fill it and move it in this warehouse. Id rather be a national business, with one in texas and one in florida and one in chicago, where people can come there and be, like, this is amazing, and the lines out the door. Where steve has really excelled so far is building his wholesale business. His Retail Business is just starting out, but with his expertise and his ability to buy the beans, this would be a waste as a regional business. This needs to be a national brand. Im also not convinced that the branding is right. Jeff im surprised you dont like the leaf. I mean lemonis i dont like the leaf because i dont think its memorable. When you go to disney world, what whats the branding . Jeff the mouse, the princess. Lemonis heres my mouse. Jeff right. Lemonis i this is the brand. Okay . Like, this is what starbucks looks like, and this is what specialty coffee looks like. Steve all right. Lemonis i want to sell that. Steve all right. Lemonis and i want to embrace it. And then we do have to have weekly and monthly reviews as a team. Its about communication. All right, lets go to work. Thanks, guys. Steve yeah. Yeah. All right. Whats our plan here . Lemonis to see where we sit and where the opportunity is. Steve okay. Lemonis okay . There are companies around the country that fight to get on the shelf at whole foods. And the fact that steve was able to get his product into a National Retailer told me a lot about the quality of his product and the passion that he has in selling it. But what i want to think about today is how it compares to other retail brands and how we can best position it for future success. Steve so, this is us, right here. This is our presence. In most of the stores, we have pretty good presence as far as, you know, were not down at the bottom or top. Lemonis i have to be honest with you, iii dont like the packaging. I cant read the name. Steve cause of the style of the font, i get it. Lemonis i have i have rarely seen a coffee package that i like. Like, this, to me, its, like, couldnt be more boring. You disagree . Steve no, i agree. We also sell them the coffee. Lemonis you sell them their coffee . Steve we roast it for them. Lemonis so, do you think that a lot of these people on this shelf bought some green beans from you . Steve and still do. Lemonis as a wholesale customer, if i saw that all the sudden you were selling me coffee, but now you were selling against me as well, it would make me uncomfortable. Steve mmhmm. Lemonis its going to start to poke and prick at some of your buyers. Steve its already happening. Lemonis i dont think you want that. 5 million of business cannot be compromised. Steve i agree. Lemonis is there a world where bodhi leaf gets out of the business of competing with the people that its roasting for and that that brand only lives as a wholesale brand . Steve of course. Lemonis that, to me, would be the goal. In order to protect our current wholesale business and ensure those wholesale customers that were not competing with them by retailing the same beans we sell them, we need to come up with a different brand with a slightly different product offering, something just shy of ultrapremium but still topshelf quality. And what this strategy allows us to do is also sell to more people. I really believe that theres a way to have it feel crafty and specialty and be superpremium as opposed to ultrapremium. Steve i agree. Lemonis and i want to build the new brand around you. Steve um, i dont want to come across that way to the public and people as arrogant. Like, look at this guy, trying to put his face out there everywhere. Lemonis uhhuh. Steve . Things like that. I just dont i ha i have to do it in a passive way, yeah. Like, i dont want to be known for the brand like that. Lemonis you dont want to be known to be the best coffee guy in the world . Steve well. I got to think about that one. Lemonis im not trying to embarrass him. Im trying to sell more coffee, and i want to make sure that the customer sees that beard and says, thats the seal of approval. Thats the validation. Id like you to be thinking about that retail brand. Steve okay. Lemonis all right. Ill see you back at the office. Steve all right. Lemonis hey, steve . Steve yeah. Lemonis do you have a printout of inventory . In a business like this, its all about inventory, the raw goods. And i wanted to ensure that there was a system in place that controlled the asset. Okay, were gonna try to figure out how to count this inventory. So, if we started Walking Around right now, take me to el salvador bodhi leaf finca vista hermosa. Jeff we we do have kind of little little bays laid out here. Lemonis so, what is this . Jeff and and these are numbers that kind of identify the bays. Lemonis okay, so where do i see the bays on here . Jeff so, obviously theyre not on here right now because we havent had the system in place. Ronnie theres nothing on paper that will tell you where the coffee is. Lemonis and who is in charge of the inventory . Jeff i am directly in charge of the inventory. Tracey you know, you oversee what your sales of going out, but theres a lot of other little facets that you, you know, arent overseeing. Hes not, you know, in this warehouse every day, touching all these bags. Jeff uh. Im actually back here quite a bit. Im doublechecking inventory to make sure we have the product to sell. Ronnie no. Like, i dont think so. Jared its mostly myself who would count these. Lemonis i would think that the guy that buys them and the guy that sells them would know. He should know what he has in available inventory at all times. Is that how it works . Jared no. Thats how it should work, though. Ronnie yeah. Jeff ii feel like i have been pretty responsible with the inventory. Lemonis so, how much inventory do you think is in here . Jeff 1,160. Lemonis 100,000 and 60 . Jeff 600. Lemonis 1,168,000 is whats on the Balance Sheet as of today. Jeff right. Lemonis is there 1,168,000 of beans in this warehouse . Why dont you know this number . Jeff i know the numbers. Lemonis im starting to candidly get annoyed with this guy because you can see the disconnect between him and the rest of the organization. You dont know that number, but youre representing to people that youre the Vice President . Jeff never. Never said that. Lemonis employees have heard you tell people that. Jeff well, theyre lying because ive never, ever said that. Brando he tells people that hes a Vice President. Jeff ive never said that. I. Steve he hes a my wifes cousin, so hes family, and through the family, i have heard that. Jeff but being being here from the beginning, being steves senior employee ronnie right there, though. Its, like, i almost dont want to listen after you say, im the senior employee here and stuff. Brando people have asked me, do i have to listen to jeff . cause he told me to do something. And i said, no, you dont. Hes not your boss. Lemonis so, are you giving people direction that work for him . Jeff no. Brando i can have evidence of that in two minutes if you want me to. Lemonis id like to see it. We have to put this to bed. So, please get the evidence. Brando okay. Lemonis hes either a liar, or hes very forgetful. And the only way to get to the root of it is to pick a topic and run it to ground and actually find out what happened. Brando this is dana. Lemonis hi, dana brando shes one of my shift supervisors. Lemonis how are you . By the way, thank you. Dana i was just doing my normal job, and jeff asked me if i would just clean behind the grinders. If it needed to be done, i dont mind doing it. Except, like, who is my boss . Jeff yeah. Iiim guilty. Iii should have told you, brando. Lemonis no, but you shouldnt have even told him. He doesnt you dont he doesnt work for you. It doesnt concern you. Like, buy beans and sell beans. And this is why people have a beef with you. Why do you need to be telling anybody anything . You are not in charge jeff so, i should have told steve . Lemonis you should have kept your [bleep] mouth shut. Jeff were kind of, uh, joining forces with marcus, and, uh. Kevin you know, we work with companies cause of the quality of the product first. Jeff yeah. Uhhuh. So, um, uh. Chances are, the last time yoyou got robbed. An, lemonis you are not in charge it doesnt concern you. I know i got a loan 20 years ago, and i got robbed. Thats why i started lendingtree the only place you can compare up to 5 real offers side by side, for free. Its like shopping for hotels online, but our average customer can save twenty thousand dollars. At lendingtree, you know youre getting the best deal. So take the power back and come to lendingtree. Com, because at lendingtree when banks compete, you win. Like, buy beans and sell beans. And this is why people have a beef with you. Why do you need to be telling anybody anything . You are not in charge jeff so, i should have told steve . Lemonis you should have kept your [bleep] mouth shut. Youre in charge of your department. And if were managing 10 facilities around the country and this stuffs going on, the the places will close. Jeff all right. Lemonis and i think, in order to play on a team, the level of communication and respect has to be better. I think weve said enough. We got it out. This is what a staff meeting looks like. Thats your job, by the way. Steve i agree. Lemonis you have to be the leader. You didnt say much. I cant be the mouthpiece here. Steve i got you. Lemonis all right . Steve yep. Jeff all right. Lemonis okay. Lets go. How you guys doing . Jeff all right. Doing well. Lemonis welcome to chicago. In order for bodhi to have a national presence, it has to have a Distribution Center in the midwest. So, today were going to a roaster Production Facility and warehouse in chicago thats available. David hello. Good morning. Jeff how are you doing . Lemonis how are you doing . David . David im david. Lemonis im marcus. David nice to meet you. Lemonis nice to meet you. Steve david, im steve. David hi, steve. Nice to meet you. Well do a whole walkthrough. Back here, i roast coffee. This is the Coffee Roaster itself. Lemonis holy [bleep] thats big. How many pounds does your facility have the capability of producing on an annual basis . David we can produce about a Million Pounds a year. Lemonis okay. How many pounds do do you guys make a year . Jared we did about 120,000. Lemonis so, this is basically our process on steroids . David exactly. Lemonis this feels legit. Steve this this is set up to do volume, for sure. Lemonis goal number one is to get steve a Distribution Center in chicago. One of the byproducts of it is that hell have roasting capacity which will allow him to also grow his Retail Business. So, i really feel like this gives us the ability to grow. It could be really awesome. David sure. I think we have a pretty good deal going. Lemonis im glad that we were able to make a deal because this is the kind of thing that ultimately changes the path of the business. David right on, guys. Steve all right. Lemonis now that we know were gonna have a hub in chicago, its time to start knocking on doors and drumming up some business. So, the first place that im taking the team is to a Restaurant Group called rockit ranch. They own a number of restaurants all across chicago. We now know we have a foot in the market, with doing business with the espresso shop. And so i thought we could sit down with these guys. Jeff lets lets do this. Lemonis you ready to go . Jeff lets sell some coffee. Lemonis okay. Great. Regardless of all the issues that people have with jeff, what i ultimately want to understand is if he could be a good salesperson. Thats ultimately what matters. Jeff all right. Kevin, where where do you feel your coffee has been lying in the past, as far as, like, what caliber of coffee you guys serve here . Kevin well, we have six venues, soon to have seven, and each one uses coffee in a very different way. Okay. Jeff um, what is, uh. You know, uh, were kind of, uh, joining forces with marcus and, uh, trying to work into the chicago market. Kevin well, you know, we work with companies cause of the quality of the product first. Jeff yeah. Uhhuh. So, um, uh. Lemonis i would have expected jeff to tell the story of the brand, the fact that they source the coffee from different farms around the world, the fact that theyre a behemoth in the wholesale industry, but instead hes just fumbling. Jeff um, um. Lemonis if your business is in trouble and you need my help, log on to. Kevin well, you know, we work with companies cause of the quality of the product first. Jeff yeah. Uh, um. Um. Steve it its always fresh, always the highest specialty coffee we can find, for sure. Kevin yeah. Well, id love to taste it. Jeff great. Lemonis can you pull some out . Jeff couldnt even create a connection with the buyer. It was awful. Steve so, kevin, this first coffee is the guatemala los santos. I like to call it more of a crowdpleaser. Its just a mild coffee. Itll appeal to the masses. Lemonis how do you like the flavor . Kevin its great. I can definitely got the nice chocolate notes and the wellrounded acidity. Um, you come in to pitch the stories, the passion i didnt get that. So, i cant make a decision. Lemonis thank you so much. Kevin my pleasure. Lemonis great feedback, and and well learn from it. Well get better. Kevin great to meet you. Jeff great to meet you. Steve thanks a lot for having us. Lemonis embarrassed thats where im at right now. By the way, he is a terrible, terrible salesperson. Steve hes the reason our green coffee sales are so low. Ive been kind of noticing that over the last few months. Lemonis well, what do you think . Is he qualified to even do what hes doing now . Steve i think this is something we need to feel out and see where the business goes Going Forward and then decide. Lemonis okay. Steve okay . Lemonis im gonna plant the seed in his head that he needs to start thinking about how hes gonna deal with jeff, but in the meantime, we have to get to work. Steve well be making all our blends in the hoppers up here, grinding right here. So, this space is kind of utilized. Lemonis before we start production in the warehouse, i asked steve to relayout the whole flow so that its consistent with what were doing in california. Steve right there, where you can see the window through the warehouse, i think this area right here should be the cupping room. Lemonis i also wanted him to brush up the place. In case any wholesale customers come there, i want to put our best foot forward. Once this place is done, itll have the capacity to fulfill wholesale orders throughout the entire midwest. Also, the new roaster will give us the ability to produce a heck of a lot more retail orders. So, lets fire this bad boy up. First, we need to create a new retail offering. So, the boys have been hard at work coming up with new blends. Steve careful, might be a little hot. Lemonis strong, but its good. Ronnie our aim with it is the broadest market of coffee drinker. Lemonis from what ive tasted, theyre knocking it out of the park. Steve whoo whoo. Lemonis steve has gained a lot of confidence through this process. Steve if we are using any sort of bearded logo or image, i just dont want it to come across as arrogant, mainly. Lemonis well, we have a lot of work left to do for him actually to accept being the face of the brand. [ machinery whirring ] meanwhile, constructions moving forward, and the entire place is being cleaned out for a fresh start. I thought it would be a good idea for the three of us to chat after chicago and hear from you on what you thought happened there and have open dialogue about it. Jeff i think i did okay. We we went in there, and we explained what we do. I think im good with people. Steve i think we [bleep] the bed. I think it was horrible. It was just a [bleep] pitch, all the way around, is how i feel. I really do. Lemonis and i felt like you really struggle to build rapport with people. Jeff i dont think so. I mean, my numbers have been good. Dude, look at my numbers. Iim steve ive looked at your numbers. I dont like them. Honestly, for selling for five years, you should be doing three to five containers of coffee a month, easy. Jeff are you doing three to five containers a month . Steve no, but i dont sell anymore. Now im doing a lot of other stuff. Lemonis i think its interesting that, rather than addressing your own issue, you started to deflect to steve and challenge him, like, what, are you selling three to five containers a month . Jeff i didnt say that. I didnt say that. Steve you just said that. Lemonis do you guys know why youre here today . Steve no, no idea. Jared no, we have no idea. Lemonis how you feeling about the brand . Steve feeling good with bodhi. Lemonis are you . Oh, what do we think . Lemonis i thinng that rather than addressing your own issue, you started to deflect to steve and challenge him, like, what, are you selling three to five containers a month . Jeff i didnt say that. I didnt say that. Steve you just said that. Lemonis why dont we pick this up later . cause youre sort of checked out. Jeff yeah. Yeah. Lets break, and ill talk to you in a little bit. Lemonis if this was business, by myself, i know what i would do with him. Steve if its not gonna change, then its not gonna work. Like, in the last couple weeks, i came really close to firing him, really close. Lemonis is he disrespectful to you . Steve no. He went to purchase coffee in el salvador, and, you know, thats his girlfriend. Lemonis shes the salesperson . Steve shes the owner of the farm. Lemonis whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. He was buying from his girlfriend . Steve yeah. Weve been buying from her for the last three years, but now shes your girlfriend and i just got the worst pricing ive ever had. Lemonis and have you confronted him on it . Steve oh, yeah. We got in a pretty heated battle about it. Lemonis and what did he say . Steve well, what do you want me to do . I go, what do you mean, what do you want me to do . Youre the buyer for the green coffee. You should be handling this. This isnt right. Hes watching out for her more than hes watching out for bodhi, and thats exactly what i said to him, and i got pissed. Lemonis and what do you want to do . Steve lets go in the back and talk to jeff. Lemonis he has demonstrated a lack of consideration for his coworkers. He has represented himself as somebody he is not. And now the company has been buying beans from this farm for three years. He starts dating her a year ago, and the price magically goes up around the same time that hes dating her. So, theres one farm that you guys have historically bought from, that youre actually dating the person that is selling it to you. Jeff yeah. Lemonis and the price went up by a significant amount. He was telling me that its somewhat unheard of, that it would jump that much that fast. Jeff um, ive been noticing some increased pricing, i mean, looking at pricing from other suppliers. Lemonis you didnt see an increase from other el salvador people . Steve nowhere near hers, not even near. Lemonis okay. Steve and jeff knows that. So, i feel like were being taken advantage of a little bit. Do you not . Jeff no. She emailed you three weeks ago. Steve arent we the company that kind of made her who she is in the u. S. . Now its just like, [bleep] those guys . This is [bleep] up. Jeff its [bleep] up. Steve yeah, but thats what you say. Step in and make it right. And if youre just gonna stand behind her, thats [bleep] up. Jeff she had to sell it somehow, so. Lemonis has she sold it already . Steve oh, so she already sold it . Jeff she had to sell it. Steve so, you didnt even tell me this. Jeff she hasnt sold it, but shes making steve you just said she sold it. See, you know a lot more than youre telling me, and ive called you out on this. You just now told me something i didnt know. Like, she already might have sold the coffee . Were you gonna tell me this . What if we dont have any el salvador coffee now in the next couple months . I need to be to be booking coffees. Jeff well, thats what she needs thats what she says she needs. Shes over it. We should be willing to pay it because those are her costs. Lemonis that is [bleep] up. Steve where do your loyalties lie . Jeff with my employer. Steve i dont feel that at all. I dont think you need to do anything further for bodhi leaf. [bleep] pisses me off. This whole thing pisses me off. Jeff its [bleep] up. Lemonis i am watching steves backbone be built one block at a time. He started soft, but as jeff got more aggressive, steve became very clear. This is the way things are gonna be. I started to see some real leadership. You should pack your [bleep] and you should go. Jeff all right. Lemonis you should do it today. Jeff all right. I will. Lemonis its been a few weeks, and weve made a ton of progress. Our new chicago roasting and shipping facility is done, and its ready for action. Holy mackerel steve a little different than last time . Lemonis it looks like a different place steve remember all the lemonis wheres all the crap . Steve literally like 40 pallets of stuff was taken out of here. Lemonis before, bodhi couldnt even keep up with demand. Now, not only can it keep up with demand, but it can grow and grow fast. But before one bean moves, i want to make sure theres a solid Inventory System. Steve easy to do. We sticker everything as it comes in. So, you scan it in, so and as you can see, that goes up on this spreadsheet. Lemonis this system will allow us to know where every bag is and where it needs to go, increasing efficiency and protecting our assets. Now that all our systems are in place, im going to allow them to start buying beans to Grow Business again. So, steve has hired a new salesperson. Steve rick. Marcus. Rick marcus, nice to meet you. Lemonis how are you . Nice to meet you. Rick really nice to meet you. Steve ricks ran some big companies. Rick were gonna move into other parts of the country, and we can do exactly what we did here with green coffee, and i picture that all the way across the united states. Lemonis most importantly, im seeing the progress in steve. Hes become a better leader. Hes more confident. Hes holding weekly Staff Meetings. Steve all right, guys. Weekly meeting. Everybody, sign in. Lemonis hes got a real handle on his business. Steve mike, everything all right in the warehouse . Any problems . Mike nothing. Steve brando, cafewise, you have any issues with . Brando were crushing it, so. [ laughter ] lemonis but theres still one more hurdle for him to cross. Look, ive mentioned several times that i want to turn steve into a brand. And hes pushed back. Well, today, i have a surprise for him. Do you guys know why youre here today . Steve no, no idea. Jared no, we have no idea. Lemonis what about the brand . How you feeling about the brand . Steve feeling good with bodhi. Lemonis are you . Steve yeah. Lemonis okay. For me, this is a big moment for steve. It was either gonna go really well or really bad. Should we take a look . Steve were gonna find out. Lemonis what do we think . Lemonis should we take a look . Steve were gonna find out. Lemonis what do we think . Steve i actually like it. Oh, thats pretty awesome. Jared wow. Does not look arrogant at all. Steve i like that. Lemonis i wanted to buy the biggest wallscape billboard i could find to announce the new brand thats being launched. And i actually saw a sense of pride. Lets say we go look at something else. Steve yeah, lets go. Lemonis what do you say . Ronnie all right. Lets do it. Ronnie oh, dang. Jared oh, wow. Steve [ laughing ] are you serious . Ronnie i like it. Its a coollooking building. Wow. Lemonis establishing a wholesale distribution model in the midwest, i wanted to complement it with a retail shop. Steve wow. Thats pretty cool. Lemonis as youre growing a brand in a market, you want to be able to display that brand in multiple ways. And with the fact that steve has grown as a leader, im confident that they can handle this. Ronnie wow. Jared i like the brick. Ronnie yeah. It has a good feel, a lot of character. [ laughter ] lemonis you guys excited about this . Brando totally. Ronnie definitely. This is really cool. Steve dude, look at the ceiling. I love it. Brando i do love that ceiling. Thats cool. Steve this is gonna have a total specialty feel. Lemonis my expectation is that the Chicago Retail shop, combined with the wholesale warehouse, could become a 3millionplus business in the next 12 months. You combine that with the 6 million that bodhi is already doing in california, were scratching 10 million really quickly. Steve this is gonna be our best shop yet, for sure. Lemonis you think so . Steve yeah. Lemonis back in orange county, i still have one more surprise for our team. I wanted to thank you guys for what i would consider an interesting process, but i really dont believe that steve could have done this without you guys. Steve no way. I couldnt have. No way. Lemonis so, what i wanted to do is i wanted to give back 10 of my original investment to the team in here. Jared im very humbled, and thank you for. Lemonis you earned it. Tracey yeah. Thats very, very nice. Steve uh, thats im very thankful, first of all. And thats exactly kind of what i was hoping for cause they deserve it. Theyre like family, and theyve worked just as hard or harder than me to get us to where we are. Lemonis what i really enjoyed about this process is seeing steves evolution. Heres a guy that put everything on the line to build a business for his family and his coworkers. At the end of the day, his unselfish behavior became his greatest asset. And his willingness to change is why steve sims will be known as the coffee king, if i have something to do with it. On three. One, two, three, partners all partners lemonis there we go. Lemonis tothis place is awesome. Two Business Partners revive a beloved Family Restaurant chain. Woman i was so excited to see that it was back. Lemonis . Only to run it right back into the ground. Mike weve gone through hell together. Lemonis the c. E. O. Is incapable of doing his job. Why are you blaming everybody else . Mike im not blaming everybody. Lemonis what about you . The head of marketing isnt allowed to do hers. Shauna i feel like i try to take on things, and you try to take them back. Sandy its not that simple. Shauna well, it is. Lemonis as the dysfunction gets worse and worse. Mike paul was handling the numbers. I trusted, but i didnt verify. Lemonis . The day of reckoning gets closer and closer. 1,900,000 is the total debt, and you have no cash