We were out of business before, we just didnt know it. I make tough decisions. Gregs not in charge anymore. Im in charge. And i back them up with my own cash. Its not always pretty. Every days not gonna be like this . No, gonna get much worse. But this is business. Cut your losses and go home. I do it to save jobs. Things are going to change. And i do it to make money. This the profit. [theme music] nine years ago, amazing grapes opened its doors in the heart of orange county, a wealthy community about an hour south of los angeles. It was the vision of Greg Schroeder. This is good stuff. A wealthy real estate consultant who loved collecting wines and decided to turn his hobby into a business. We had to drive 35 miles to find the nearest fine wine store, and i thought, just open a store closer to home. Today, amazing grapes sells some of the finest wines in the world, and while the business generates about 3. 5 million in revenue, last year, they lost money. We have never seen a profit from this store in the nine years weve been open. And havent even made a dent in paying down a debt thats well over 500,000. There are 17 employees at amazing grapes, but without a strategy to generate sales and increase profit margins, this business will be done before the end of the year. Youre selling wine too cheap. Let me stop you right there. Im not done. I dont see myself walking away from amazing grapes. Im trying everything i can to keep this alive. In the u. S. , wine retailers generate over 9. 5 billion every year. I think amazing grapes can be turned around, and i want a piece of it. All these boxes. I always believe that First Impressions are lasting impressions, and my First Impression of walking into amazing grapes is theres clutter everywhere. Its disturbing. Live music in a wine store. [laughs] ayyiyi. Wow. I couldnt believe how much inventory was in this place. Sometimes, too much selection is awful. How are you . Im marcus. How you doing . Brian, pleasure, welcome. Nice to meet you. You too. Its a little bit bigger than i thought it was gonna be. 1,800 different skus of wine in this space. Is that whats in here, 1,800 . Yeah. Huh. No one has time to look at 1,800 varieties. Id be willing to bet that half of it doesnt even sell. How long have you worked here . Todays my second day. Is it . Yeah. Look what you were signing up for. Every days not gonna be like this . No, gonna get much worse. [laughs] take a walk around, just check it out. Is the owner here . Um. Not sure. [scanner beeps] your total todays gonna be 56. 86, sir. Im marcus. Im daniel. What do you do here . I specialize in the beer, definitely. So i mean, ive been inive been in the scene for about four years now. The beer scene . The beer scene. Just kind of learning everything i can. I do a lot of research. How do you know what to pick . Ugh, a lot of drinking. A lot of drinking and a lot of expertise. All i know in this world is beer. So who do you work for . I work for, you know, the owners, bill and greg. They come in every once in awhile. But theyre not here every day . No. Its one of the issues that i think that we are facing here. Huh. All right, brother, thanks. Hey, no worries. Whos hiding in the aisles . Im dan. Dan, what do you do here . Im the wine bar, and i spend most of my time selling. How long have you been in the business . 22 years. Whoa. What i brought to the business was a book of business that i had built over 20 years dealing with folks by selling to them directly via email or phone call. Thats worth a lot of money. Right, right. Whats your favorite wine . Uh, well, i mean, my true love are the wines from bordeaux, so do you have a lafite . Okay, now youre getting to the top. Nah, i dont want that. I cant afford it. I have a question for you. Sure. Why is there crap everywhere . Too much inventory . Exactly. Whos responsible ultimately for overbuying inventory . Greg wants to be in charge of that. My approach to buying is, is i buy what i think i can sell within 30 days. And would you know how to liquidate it if you had to . Yeah. And so why havent you suggested that to greg . Well, i tried, marcus. Im not in charge. Hes my boss. Dan definitely knows what hes talking about. To take a guy with 20 Years Experience and handcuff him seems silly to me. Where are the owners . Well, Greg Schroeder is the one owner that i think youve maybe met. I have not. Boy, um ive been here a good amount of time, and i still havent met greg. It isnt like he didnt know i was coming. All right, well, im gonna walk over to the wine bar. We can meet some more people. Sure. The layout of the bar makes absolutely no sense. Its literally hidden in the corner of the business. And what else is odd is i feel like im standing in two different businesses. I mean, youre paying rent for the square footage, but youre failing to actually capitalize on the fact that its there. Are you mike . I am, yes. Nice meeting you. Nice to meet you. What do you do here . I oversee the kitchen and manage thisthe bar side of the operation. How much revenue will the bar and restaurant do here . The bar right nowgross sales for us this year would be a little under 500,000. Okay. Youre responsible for the layout and everything . Thats gregs decision. Greg is the operational piece. We never see him, so its two different businesses under one roof really. Its odd when i walk into this place because i dont actually see the bar. Its kind of tucked over into the corner. We want our patrons at the bar to actually get up and buy a bottle or a case of whatever wine they were just drinking. Its common sense to have the bar help drive retail sales, but you cant do it if its clear across the other side of the room. Im marcus. Matt. What do you do here, matt . I guess you can call me, like, the retail manager. You know what i havent seen . Where are the owners at . Greg, i thinki mean, im not sure. How often is he here . About, you know, once a month, twice a month. Its kind of usually us on a daily basis. Theres no leadership. No, not outside of me, mike, and dan. I really invest in businesses with absentee owners. Interesting thing here is that the employees have taken it upon themselves to do all the things that the owners should be doing. Thats something you cant put a price on. These guys are clearly keeping this ship afloat. You know, you would think that if somebody called you and said, hey, come help fix my business, they would be here. Uh, yeah. Seems odd to me too. [laughs] its odd to you too. Okay, good. Can you give me a little tour of the place . Of course. Thats the kitchen . Thats the kitchen, yeah. The whole kitchen . Thats everything, yeah. How are you . Im marcus. Hi. Hi, marcus, gerri. Gerri, nice to meet you. [horn honks] this is the whole kitchen . This is the entire kitchen. This kitchen is tiny. Im shocked by the size of this kitchen and the lack of equipment in there. I dont know how she even cooks anything, let alone contribute to the 500,000 coming out of her department. Be nice if you had more space. It would be great to have more space. Thats the biggest problem we have. When were plating at night and a full bar of 75 people, its really hard. Its tight. [car alarm chirps] just hearing from some of the other team members about the place, i think the biggest thing is there is no leader. No. No . When i was called to come here, i think they assumed that i would just come in and just write a check. Yeah. [laughs] and the reality of it is, is that i am not convinced yet. Are you the grim reaper, or[laughs] me . Yeah. Sometimes. I dont really know where the leadership is. I dont know who the owners really are. If theres changes to be made and sacrifice to be made, were willing. Okay. Thats good to know. cause we care. What do these people that you work with mean to you . Wow. Its not just a job, marcus, really. This is someplace i love, i love coming to everyday. I interact with so many people that i care about, and that door would close, and i wouldnt have that. This place just means a lot to me. Marcus, im Greg Schroeder. Oh, hey, greg, how are you . Nice to meet you. One of the owners . Im one of the owners, yup. Okay. Nice meeting you. Nice meeting you, marcus. Thank you. You do a nice job, by the way. Guess who decided to show up . Finally. So what do you do fulltime . This isyou dont come here every day. No, i come in here probably two, three times a week. Two or three times a week . Yeah. Or two or three times a month . [laughs] these guys have been here for a while, and they know how to run things. Uhhuh. How much revenue will you do this year . Projected about 3. 5 million. How much inventory do you have . About 350,000. You have any debt . Yes. Right now, 540,000 of that is for inventory, 90 but you just said there was only 350 in inventory. Yes. So right now, youd be upside down. Correct. Couple hundred grand. This business is in real trouble. Amazing grapes currently owes 540,000 in payables to vendors that they bought inventory from, but if they were to liquidate everything tomorrow, it would only cover 350,000 of that total debt. That means were 200,000 in the hole and no cash to cover it. I need to take a closer look at these financials. Walk me through this again. And heres how it kind of breaks down on a monthly basis. So about 300 grand a month in business. Correct. Were doing 65 of our business through email and internet, which is what dan does. Of the 3 1 2 million of revenue, almost 2 million. So dan is really responsible for most of the sales. That is correct. And do you know the margin is on that . The bar margins about 37 overall. Okay. The wine on average, theyre probably around 14 to 17 total. And is there a difference in margin between the walkin business and the web business . No, theyre all about the same, cause its the same price for everybody on those transactions. Not good. How much is your rent here . Its 14,000 a month, so so youre essentially giving the retail customer a wholesale price if the margins are that low, except on the internet, you have no rent. In here, you have 14,000 a month. The fact that they do 3 1 2 million of sales a year is irrelevant because they dont make enough margin to cover their operating expenses. Theres no way out of the hole other than money going in. No way. Whats the most profitable part of this business . The bar. The bars the best. Very early on, what looks like to be the flaw in this business, too much floor space. Youre not a wine discount depot. Not enough tables. I dont know that the space is too big. I think the use of the space is wrong. You can cut the retail store in half. Your margins would change so dramatically if you could do more wholesale over the web, a little less retail space cause youre not getting it anyway, and get to that bar easier. The bar and restaurant has the highest margins in the entire business at nearly 40 , and it makes up 14 of the revenue. The problem is, it only makes up 10 of the square footage. I want to focus on the high margin business, the bar and the restaurant, and minimize the amount of Space Dedicated to the low margin business, the wine walkin Retail Business. I know that if i can add tables and chairs, my margins will go up immediately. But as an owner, you have to be there to connect the dots. The problem that exists today here, theres no leader, and the owners are absent. And because of that, the business loses money, and because of that, the business is upside down. So what do you do . This is why we called you. Whens the last time you guys had a staff meeting . We dont have them. I been here three years. Theres been one. No staff meetings. How do you know whats going on . You dont. When the [bleep] hits the fan, thats when we learn about it. Thisits likethis is like the definition of insanity. How many total employees here . 17 employees. If the business does go out, thats 17 people that are on the street, and you guys lose a lot of money. I think bill, he doesnt even sleep at night. Whos bill . Bill garys my partner. Hes the one who handles all the financials and does all the book work. The one that doesnt come. Hes not coming. And why didnt he were to be here again . Theyre Business Consultants themselves, and they just felt that it would be im not a consultant. I write checks. Right, theyre consultants. Theres a big difference between me and them. Yeah, i know. So what they would probably worry about is, if they cant fix their own business, how are they gonna fix somebody elses . Wow. Shame on them. Lets try to call em if you can. I dont know if you have any way to call him. Yup. [phone ringing] hey, bill, how are you . Youre on the speakerphone. I got marcus here with me. [on phone] how are you doing . Hey, good, bill. How are you . Good. I wish you were here. Well, i wish i couldve made it. I may try to swing by this afternoon, but im got some conflicts in my work schedule. If i can get out of here, i will try to make it. Bill is a partner at amazing grapes, and in order for me to do a deal with this business, i need to talk to the guy who actually puts together the financials. I flew here from chicago, as you know. So what time can i expect you . Yeah. How about 5 00 . Ill plan on seeing you then. Thanks a lot. Do you drink much wine . I dont drink much. No . It impairs my decisionmaking. [laughs] and i write checks that i shouldnt write. [laughs] glass of wine over here, please. Hey, im marcus. Nice to meet you, marcus. Bill gary. Hey, bill, how are you . How you doing . Nice to meet you. Hey, greg, good to see you. Welcome. Why dont we go sit down and kind of get down to business. Terrific, great. Is that all right . Yeah, thatd be great. Okay. How much money do you guys have invested so far in this venture . About 3 4 million, and then five silent partners who put in another 1 2 million. And how much are the payables today . All of our liabilities is about 575,000. Almost 600,000. Almost 600,000. Are the other partners in addition to yourself prepared to write a check to get the business right . None of the partners are willing to do that. Not even you guys. The math is very simple. Theyve invested over 1 million into this business, but they currently owe their vendors 600,000. I dont care that they do 3 1 2 million a year in business. They dont make any margin, so theres nowhere to pay the bills from. Here are the problems that i see terrible communication. Not having a leader in place is devastating to a business. People, process, and product is all i care about, and youve screwed em up. At this point, the business is essentially zero. So i dont know that i have a deal to make. I think unfortunately where were at is cut your losses, liquidate your inventory, pay your vendors, work your way out of your lease, and go home. What is all that . Its gregs band. Hes never here to work, but he has time to come have his band here . Still fresh unstopables inwash scent booster downy unstopables i chose the spark cash card from capital one. Cause i earn unlimited 2 cash back on everything i buy. Last year i redeemed 21,000 in cash back which i used for new equipment, to expand production. Whats in your wallet . betsy quarter mile of tinsel. Of lights. To expand production. harold and real snow all the way from switzerland. betsy hmmhm. Gonna be tough to top. Well played. vo add some thrill to your wish list. At the season of audi sales event. Get exceptional offers now. Xfiniwith the new hbo max app on xfinity. Watch the greatest collection of shows, movies and new max originals. Enjoy hbo favorites you know and love like game of thrones and the undoing. With exclusive max originals like the flight attendant. And blockbuster movies like dolittle. Just say hbo max into your voice remote to sign into your hbo account or sign up. Tv made simple, easy, awesome. I think unfortunately where were at is cut your losses, liquidate your inventory, pay your vendors, work your way out of your lease, and go home. You dont have the time. The other scenario isits a little like a hail mary. You should let somebody else run the business, and hope that somebody else can execute it because you dont have the time. I grew up in retail. To me, this is second nature. I love this. I love coming in here and rolling up my sleeves. Greg, im not sensing that you have really been involved to date. No ones ever here. Whos in charge . I dont know. Im not here every day. I readily admit that. I cant imagine not being involved. And how about you, bill . I could be not involved. Heres my offer. My offer is ill put 300,000 into the business. I would own 51 of the business. The Management Team would own 25. And the current ownership would own whatevers left. I mean, im shocked by this quite frankly. It just doesnt seem to compute. You guys have any suggestions . What im seeing is 25 . I mean holy [bleep]. With all due respect, i would never do a deal where i would be less than 51 , and the reason that im not 100 is because i want the employees to have something. I cant do it without them, and potentially even having them be one of the general managers. I dont know that. I cant make that assessment that quickly. What i love about these employees is not only are they knowledgeable, not only are they hardworking, but they have put up with a lot of nonsense. Owners not showing up, no leadership, and despite all of that, theyve stuck together, and theyve allowed this business to still generate 3. 5 million a year. Yeah, whats different . Whats the magic formula . Going forward, and were gonna put a leader in place. Were gonna put a process in place to buy inventory the right way so that we measure turn, so were not sitting with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory. You got to show up, and you got to participate. Look it, you know, if. If nothing else to take the pressure off, you know, and we can buywe can pay our vendors, i mean, thats huge. So do we have a deal . We have a deal. Im gonna write you a check. My offer of 300,000 for 76 of the business is solely to go towards paying down the vendors. We knew that they were in trouble by about 250,000, and i wanted to make sure that all the vendors were brought current. Going forward, after you take this check, im 100 in charge. Do you understand that . Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Lets toast. Thank you for saving us. Come on up. Dan, shawn, ed. I was asked to come to this business because this business last year did 3. 6 million, and we lost money. Just silence. The owners here i think take most of the responsibility. They have been halfass, absentee owners, and typically, i do not invest when there are absentee owners, but last night, i wrote a check for 300,000. I now own 51 of the business. [laughs] people, for me, is the only reason that businesses fail or they survive. So the Management Team, the people that i believe are here for the long haul, will own 25 of the business. Whoa. And the current ownership structures gonna go along with whatever we decide. Yes. Knowing that i have ownership in this business now, it just really shows me how committed marcus is to his people. Its really a dream come true. This is gonna be hard on greg. You are more important. You now have more control and ownership and authority than he does. I want to fix this model, but we got to put a leader in place, fix our margins. We need to reduce the inventory because this is just cash sitting around. Were gonna learn how to make every square foot and every inch of this place generate something. The wine bar generates the highest margin for amazing grapes at about a 40 margin, but with the current layout, were limiting the amount of revenue the wine bar can generate to about 500,000 a year. I want to dramatically increase the amount of seating in the wine bar. My goal is to have the wine bar contribute an additional Million Dollars of revenue a year. At a 40 margin, that would result in 400,000 of additional profit. Things are going to change. [laughs] [laughter] come here. Guys, to a new beginning. New beginning. Cheers. Yeah. Yeah. Whats all this . Well, these are just empty boxes. But why are they all kept here . Because we dont have any place to put it. Amazing grapes has hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory. We need to liquidate the bad stuff so we can reinvest into the inventory that sells with good margin. I want to get rid of all this stuff under here. We want to declutter this place big time. Whoever this artist is, call them and have em pick it up. I will, yeah. Heres what id like to do tonight. I want to have liquidation, any excess overstock, anything we have too much of. Literally blow stuff out. Do we have an email list or anything we could send out to people . Absolutely. For, like, an alert. Thats right. Okay. In order for the staff to push the food, they need to know the menu, so were having a tasting. Whats the hottestselling item on this bar right now . Both pizza. Really . Im not a bread person, so i only care about what sells and what the margins are, not about what brian thinks tastes good. The mac and cheese kind of looks glisteny. Im not getting any truffle on it at all. Its very subtle. Its very subtle. Yeah. Theres a right way and a wrong way of being helpful. Brian is doing it wrong. Gerri, we think you do an amazing job. What is all that . Its gregs band. Hes never here to work, but he has time to come have his band here . I guess so. How often does he do this . About once every month. Sounds like more often than he actually comes. No comment. Basically took over half the place. How does the rest of the team feel about this . Its just loud, and the customers are kind of put off by the atmosphere, and they kind of do a turn and walk to the door kind of thing. All right. Ill catch up with you in a little bit. All right, marcus. Hey, man. Hey, marcus. I dont understand. Everybodys working inside, and youre driving around in a good humor truck with your music equipment. No, im workim getting ready for working tonight. You watch, you see tonight. This place is gonna be packed. Greg, i got to tell you something, this is ridiculous. This is a good example of whats wrong here. Youre not focused on the right stuff. Hey, gerri, this is nuts. Little bit. I mean, this stresses me out. [chuckles] yeah. How many seats will we actually lose . How many i mean, at least thats 40 at least. At least 40 to 50. Yeah. And what does an average customer spend on probably 35 a head. Are you [bleep] me . How much do you pay this band . 350. How much do you have to do in sales to pay 350 on a band fee . 1,000 . On 35 margins . Yeah, probably, yeah. Yeah, maybe, yeah, yeah. That just seems crazy. Hey, greg, walk me through why you think this is a Good Business idea. Because it packs the house. This place will be standing room only, and uhhuh, and how does that equate into dollars . It has proven to be the biggest nights. I think weve actually hit 4,000 in one night. And you have the Empirical Data to support that. Yes, we do. I think the issue for me is that the employees are telling me something totally different. I dont think im mistaken. Mikes telling me something different, and gerris telling me something, this young ladys telling me something. Theyre not good nights for them. Youre wrong. Greg have you guys ever dialogued about this as a team . Honest to god, marcus, i leave that up to mike. I dont have these meetings with them like he does. Financial data typically isnt shared with employees, at least not in my opinion. Do you normally have a good night . Not considering what we could do on a busy night. We could make 200 bucks apiece. And how much will you make on a night like tonight . 100 to 120. So half. For, likeyeah. I keep being told, oh, no, this is a good night. You seem to be the only one that has an issue with it. Im the only one whos speaking up. When youre not here enough to know whats going on, its really honestly hurtful and insulting because we care about this business just as much as you do. Im doing this as trying to help you guys to make more money. What it does is it creates animosity amongst the staff. I wish that over the last year or two, you had the same passion for the business. Well, i have. No, you havent. You wouldnt be losing money. Are you the [bleep] Police Telling me what i need to do . Gregs not in charge anymore. Im in charge. The croods come home. Kinda big isnt it . Thats the mirror. Sorry. And the world will never be the same. A girl . Friend dah, dah, dah. Go to watchcroods. Com. And if we win, we get to tell you how Liberty Mutual customizes Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Isnt that what you just did . Service stand back, im gonna show ya how doug and limu roll, ya you know you got to live it if you wanna wi. [ music stops ] time out only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Oh. Oh, darn wha let me help. Here we go. Lift and push and push there. Its up there. Oh, boy. Hey joshie. Wrinkles send the wrong message. Help prevent them before they start with downy wrinkleguard. 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Whether its our place. Or yours. Were there. Rain or shine, day or night. No one knows your vehicle better. To learn all the ways we can be at your service, call, click or visit a dealership near you. Good morning. Morning, marcus. Good morning. How did we do last night . We got the totals here. Greg the owner took over the bar with his band. He insists its good for business, but the staff says the band nights never make as much money as he thinks they do. Ill let the numbers tell the story. How do they look . cause when i talked to gerri last night, she said it was dead. What did you experience . Dead. So the total customers we saw were 82. Correct. What would we normally see on a saturday night . 40 more, 50 more. So 50 more. Potentially. How was food last night . 741 was so how does that compare typically . Typically 1,000 to 1,300. So almost half. Thats terrible. Its the worst. I walked away with 11 in cash tips. 11 . In cash tips. Thats nutty. I mean, we lost money. By the time you pay the electric bill and the rent, cause were not factoring all those things, you lose money. We are not here to lose money. So if you had to identify the single biggest problem from last night, what is it . The band itself. Its not the right venue for them. It doesnt fit. Its obviously not working out. His band cannot play here anymore. Do you know where greg is . I have no idea where greg is. Mike, you seen greg . Have not seen greg. Has anybody heard from greg . No. Okay. Okay. Its the same old story with greg. Ive made several attempts to try to reach him, but he doesnt answer. He says he wants to be involved, but i havent seen that yet. Oh, hey, guys. Hey, marcus, how are you . How are you . So i brought in a contractor, and were gonna start making changes immediately. The sooner we have a new layout, the closer well be to making money. I need to figure out how to change the look and feel of the place. It doesnt feel inviting. Is there anything that you really want to keep . Id like to keep the exterior walls. [laughs] okay. This is the kitchen. Oh, wow. So ideally, id like to go that way. Okay. In here, i really want to have this bar jut out into the middle of the store so that when i come in the front door, im seeing a really nice bar all the way around. So id like to get started tomorrow. Okay. Were all getting ready for one last night of business before this place gets a major overhaul, and were not telling anybody our plans yet. Marcus, the mayor was in here tonight. I told her that i thought there was gonna be some changes and that [people cheering] she asked about what those changes were. I said there was gonna be an expansion of the bar. Were gonna remerchandise the retail. At the time that you opened your mouth, did you know what was happening . Youre gonna expand the bar, right . No. This guys been here less than a week, and hes off telling everybody what our plans are. Thats not gonna work. Are you the spokesperson of the business now . I had an idea, and i told her it was just an idea. Did you check with these guys before talking to them . No. Talking to the mayor about changes that are gonna happen here, yeah, that shouldnt have happened. I was trying to be proactive because but nobody asked you to do that. But it was an opportunity. Butlets go outside, cause i cant hear in here. Brian may have had good intentions, but he doesnt even know what my plan is. He shouldnt have been communicating with anybody. Thats not his place. Why did you think that was the right thing . Because you need to go through a process what, are you the [bleep] Police Telling me what i need to do . Well, im telling you what i have people that are in place. Who designated you as the person that needed to figure that out . Nobody did. I was taking so then why did you take that upon yourself. Because i took an oppor to communicate what you thought the plans were . Youre talking out of your ass. That to me, in my mind, was the best thing for this business. There really isnt any direction. It is a rudderless ship. Am iam i talking out of turn on that . No, man youre talking out of your ass is what youre doing. Youve been here a [bleep] week all im saying isand i think, you know i rarely lose my cool. Well, and i dont want you to. You stepped way the [bleep] out of bounds. But i was trying to be proactive. Who hired you . Greg did. Okay, well gregs not in charge anymore. Im in charge. I understand that. Do we understand that . Absolutely. If that doesnt work, then you can get the [bleep] out. No, im good with it. Im really starting to get annoyed. Were still partners, damn it. You couldve been here. Look, its just like when i tell people about saving with geico. Be confident. Stand up straight. And speak with purpose. Yeah . Go on, give it a practice run. Kelsey. Kelsey. Marriage . Oh. Okay. Look maybe you should just show her this beautiful Helzberg Diamond ring . 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I just wanted to clear the air. You know, im trying to do whats best for this business, and ive been in it a long time, and i think i can bring a lot to the table. As long as you and i can have an understanding that if were gonna have good ideas, lets just communicate and collaborate about em. Absolutely. All right, lets go. Thanks. Hi there, im marcus. Welcome, marlowe. Marlowe, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Al paul. Al, nice to meet you. Tell us a little bit about yourselves and what you do here and how we can partner together. Well, were kind of unique here. Were an urban winery, and we source fruit from napa and sonoma regions mainly. And also included in there is our private label program. This is the pinot gris 2012 vintage, north coast appalachian. Okay, so this glass here . 13 a bottle. What would we buy this similar wine for if we werent going direct to the vineyard . The 16 range, so its right there, its right in the sweet spot. So theres some savings in going this direction . Absolutely. And if you pick a portfolio of our wines, we can do better than that price. Oh, no, were gonna be in the nines. 9, 10. [laughter] by the time hes done. Yeah. Have you guys met Marcus Lemonis . [laughter] private label products like this will dramatically improve your margins, but in order to make room for these kind of products, we need to clear out the stuff thats been sitting there for years. So when we get back to the store, im gonna have dan lower the prices and liquidate some of the slow moving merchandise. Thanks, guys, appreciate it. Thanks again, marcus, appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, marcus. Thanks, guys. All right, lets head home. This ends coming all the way out, correct . Were gonna move this all the way down . Well, you want to move it out enough to accommodate for that. Dont go any further than that. So i would be very technical in my measurement to not go past that. Understand. Yep. Put a pedestal here hey. Hi. How are you . Im good, how are you . Good. Im a little shocked. Were out of business. We were out of business before, we just didnt know it. I believe were still partners, correct . Mmhmm. Partners should talk to each other, especially if were making these kind of changes. Right. I wasnt told, hey, greg, were guttin the place. And i dont want to keep getting back to the same thing of, well, you couldve been here, but you couldve been here. There are other partners now, right, the employees are partners too, and mike and dan and the rest of the team, they were part of this process. But if there was a plan, you couldve emailed it to me. You have my email. You have my phone number. 76 of the owners decided that we needed to move forward. Im really starting to get annoyed. Were still partners, damn it. As long as youre here, i will include you in the process, but you werent around. When someone calls me and tells me to come help them fix their business, you just have to be here. Thats it. Im here to tell you, its not gonna work the way its working right now. Im tired of being disrespected. You been treating me like im a moron. I dont know what the hell im doing. I invited you into this place because i thought you could help me. Ugh, its just frustrating me is that im not an idiot. This has really pissed me off. If your business is in trouble and you need my help, log on to theprofitcasting. Com. Gillette proglide and proglide gel. Five blades and a pivoting flexball designed to get virtually every hair on the first stroke, while washing away dirt and oil. So youre ready for the day with a clean shave and a clean face. When theyre sick, they get comfortable all kinds of places. They also spread all kinds of germs, from cold and flu to strep and more. Nothing kills more cold and flu viruses, including the covid19 virus, on more surfaces than lysol disinfectant spray. Lysol. What it takes to protect. [phone rings] sore throat pain . 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Great, then you just have to be here. But if youre not here, the trains gonna leave regardless. Fair enough. And as long as you understand that, were good. All right . My goal with this renovation is to integrate the two businesses that are here. Im moving walls to make the kitchen larger. And extending the bar and making it a beautiful centerpiece. Im also putting in new flooring to enhance the open space weve created. In all, i spent a lot of money in this renovation cause i really wanted to get it right. [laughs] [claps] hey. Oh, my gosh. How are you . Both good to see you. Good to see you. Looks great. Unbelievable. I am blown away by the transformation of this space. Ive spent well over 300,000, but i wanted every square inch of this place redesigned so we can focus on high margin business. Our cluttered retail wine space has been cleaned up. We now highlight all of our offerings in display cases around the store. The new display makes it easier to navigate and find wines, especially the high margin ones. The new kitchen is great. Ive given them the necessary space and equipment to produce more. The biggest change of all is the wine bar. Its no longer hidden in the back of the business. We now have a beautiful, twosided wine bar, and ive even tripled the amount of seating and added lounge chairs to create an open floor plan that finally unifies the Retail Business and the wine business into one, allowing us to serve more food and wine to our customers, ultimately increasing our revenue and our profits. I actually think it came out better. Has the family style feel. Yeah. Its just hours before our soft opening, and dan is repricing the wine to make room for our high margin items. Hey, dan. Whats up . Pricing all the wines that we are blowing out. I know were trying to reduce inventories. Im just raisin the flag that its been an issue for as long as ive had this place. Weve never made a profit because weve never charged enough for our product to outrun our expenses. I think we sell too low. You know, like, Something Like this, 9. 98. We can go up a buck. Its competitively priced. I feel that i should have the final say on the pricing of wine for the mere point of check and balance. Otherwise, without a check and balance, youre free to do whatever you want. Okay, look, i refuse to have to come to work and feel this way anymore. Going forward, im in charge. I dont give a crap if you think youre in charge just because youve been anointed all of a sudden. If youre wrong, im gonna tell you youre wrong. Its not your place anymore. Yes, it is my place. Youre done. But im not done. I still have a percentage in this, dan. That does not mean done, not done done. Your percentage now is silent. No we dont want your input. Im not gonna be silent. Stay out of my business, okay . Its our business, dan. Buying and selling and pricing wine is my business now. Stay out of my business. Im done. Greg was completely disrespectful. He told that i am basically not following direction. The way i took it, marcus, was, is he was trying to beat on his chest ofhes the watchdog andhes gonna address it with you. Well, lets go talk to him about it. Sure. Yeah. Our soft opening is tonight, and dan and greg are fighting. This is not something we need right now. Hey, greg, got a second . Yeah. Yes. You guys had an issue . The issues are that the margins are still performing the way theyve always performed for the last five years. Right. Which is why weve survived. No, it isnt, dan. Thats why were in the position were in today. You are just so clueless. We still have a problem. We dont have high enough margins. We dont have a problem, greg. Yes, we do. No, we dont. 19 of margin isnt gonna get it done. Marcus doesnt think we have a problem. Greg continues to play monday morning quarterback. Hes had eight years to figure this out, and all of a sudden now, he wants to complain about the fact that the margins arent good enough. But i know this isnt about margins. Greg is just frustrated that the business has slipped out of his control and hes not in charge anymore. This parts doing well. This part isnt. Not doing well according to you, greg. Marginsdan, this isnt my first rodeo. I gave dan the direction to take certain things that we have excess of, and just blow em out. Its ultimately his decision how we buy wine and how we do all that stuff. Okay, listen. I tell you what. Thank you very much for coming in. Youre gonna apologize. Im not gonna shake your hand, man, you owe me an apology. See you later. Im not gonna apologize, dan. I know youre not, cause youre a narcissist. Ive had too much history with this guy. He treats me like [bleep] and im sick of it. Well, so heres what i think i would do if i were you. [bleep] off. Dont tell me this stuff anymore. 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I know youre not, cause youre a narcissist. Ive had too much history with this guy. He treats me like [bleep], and im sick of it. Let me let you guys talk. Greg, where you going . Home. Why . Im clearly not wanted or needed here. No, i dont think thats the case, greg. Oh, clearly it is. No, its not actually. Theres got to be something more. Whats really bothering you . I dont like the fact that my employees have kicked me to the curb. Thats whats bothering me. And their attitude and their responses . Dan is saying, you know, basically, [bleep] off, dont tell me this stuff anymore. I think what we want to do is we want to let people do their job, right, hold them accountable, and if they fail, well deal with it. I got it now. All right, well, come on back in. I didnt get it come on back in, come on. Im not gonna go through any more of this crap. Okay. Well, then just stay away from him. So come on. No, keep him away from me. [laughs] okay. I dont see myself walking away from amazing grapes. Our employees are fantastic. Quite frankly, theyre the backbone of this business. Even though marcus doubts my personal commitment, im gonna prove to him that im still very much committed to this business. [indistinct chatter] mike, its crazy. Yeah, itsyeah. How busy it is. Its been unbelievable. The response has been tremendous. Whats happened with the actual revenue, the sales . How have they been . Off the chart. Off the chart. Our best saturday night if we were lucky, we may do 3,000. Were seeing almost 8,000. So its in one night . In one night. Thats just bar and restaurant. Just bar and restaurant, exactly. Crafted beer, the draft beers, we would normally do maybe 200 in sales. Were looking at, like, 4,000 in sales. Oh, my god. Its likeits unbelievable. You know what im most excited about . When i look at how much business the company used to do and how much more its doing it now, and i see the margin improvement. I mean, were making money already. Were making money already, yeah, and itll only get better. Itll only get better. Im proud of you. Thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely. Its been outstanding. Thank you. Absolutely, thank you. Dan, give me an update on whats happening. The numbers are great. Its been around 8 to 10,000 in sales. Is that better than it used to be . Yes, itsyes, its actually better than it used to be. How much . Id say by 10 to 15 , and i just see it growing from there. How are you feeling about the cross sales, and now that people are eating here, are you noticing people buying bottles to go more often . You know whats amazing is, theyre not only buying bottles to go. Were selling more bottles to be enjoyed in house, and were seeing people actually get up and come over here and peruse because it justits presented in a clean, easytolookat display now. Yeah. All right, great job, buddy. Thank you so much. Great job. I wanted to grow our margins any way we could, so i created a private label house wine, amazing grapes wine. You guys, you know, we went to that vineyard. Yeah. Um, and we talked about improving margins, and so we had these bottles made, and well essentially be not only serving these at the bar. Mmhmm. Well have em available for sale as well. Oh, nice. And it allows us to sell wine at the bar, get a nice margin by the glass, and keep everybody happy. I love it. So congratulations. You guys can break it open. Yeah [laughter] this was one of the better experiences ive had in fixing businesses, cause i got to work on the front lines with the people that actually make the business run. In the last several weeks, theyve been averaging 80,000 a week, just under 4. 2 million a year, a 700,000ayear increase in business. We are well on our way to making a lot of money, and these employees are gonna get a nice bonus check. Im craig melvin. And im natalie morales. And this is dateline. Michelles dead. How is that possible . Craig melvin a young mother found brutally murdered her little girl left to wander in her mothers blood. Police had a suspect, and they say he had a motive. We had an intimate relationship. We ended up having sex. Craig melvin but could they prove he was the killer . It was a circumstantial case. Craig melvin except for that witness the girl who left those footprints. Fiona childs we will never know what cassidey saw and what she didnt see. Craig melvin maybe she couldnt tell