Were not gonna wake up every morning wondering if we have a job. Were gonna wake up every morning wondering how many jobs we have to do. Its not always pretty. Everythings gonna change everything. But i do it to save jobs. And i do it to make money. This. Lets go to work. Is the profit. In 2000, after years of working multiple jobs, Adelo Ramirez used his life savings to open up los gemelos, a small mexican eatery in port chester, new york. Woman plantains and tortillas. Lemonis authentic family recipes drew crowds. But most popular of all were his freshly made tortillas, so popular that in 2006, he started manufacturing them for sale to local Grocery Stores. Adelo were making lots of money. As you can see, we have 22 of the tortilla market here. Lemonis and before long, revenue was approaching the 500,000 mark. Man very good taste right here. Lemonis but then a much bigger tortilla brand expanded to the east coast, putting adelo on his heels. Adelo like, right now, im out of cash. Lemonis helpless to compete with their marketing dollars, hes seen his sales plummet and his dream of a National Business tossed into jeopardy. Adelo [bleep] lemonis this company came to my attention in a slightly unusual way. I happen to have a friendship with the comedian, george lopez. One day, he said to me, would you be kind enough to sit down with a guy that could really use your help . Now, im happy to do george a favor. But i also know that the hispanic food market is huge, around 18 billion just in the u. S. , and its only getting bigger. So today, im meeting adelo at the restaurant where it all started. How are you . Im marcus. Yeni hi. Lemonis nice to meet you. Yeni nice to meet you. Lemonis hi. Nice to meet you. Leticia hi. My name is leticia. Lemonis im marcus. Nice to meet you. Adelo mr. Lemonis, i mean. Lemonis no, marcus. Adelo oh, marcus, okay. Lemonis nice meeting you, adelo. Adelo nice meeting you. Lemonis this is a big place. Adelo it is. Lemonis whats all the wood for . Adelo we actually cook carne asada ribs and chicken. This is the wood oven. Lemonis oh, so you literally do it like a straightup campfire. Adelo yeah. And this is it. This is our kitchen. I have this passion to cook. And ive been in the cooking business since i was 14 years old. I love it. You know, were were not the texmex kind of place. Lemonis yeah. Adelo were more authentic. And we want to keep it that way. Lemonis yeah. Adelo the articles always talk about how authentic it is. This. This is when we first opened. Lemonis where did you get the money to open this . Adelo i worked 3 years. Lemonis saved up money. Adelo and saved all that money. I used to sleep for 4 hours. I had my route at 18, my produce route. Lemonis so you were delivery. Adelo yes. Then i also had a fulltime job as a deli clerk from 6 00 a. M. To 7 00 p. M. Lemonis so you were working two jobs. Adelo and then one on sunday. Lemonis so three jobs. Adelo yeah. I thought i was rich. Lemonis and you saved how much money . Adelo 40,000. Lemonis thats a lot of money. Its not hard for me to imagine the amount of sacrifices that adelos had to make along the way to achieving his dream. But as hes describing it to me, hes doing it with a real smile on his face, not one ounce of selfpity or bitterness. Shows me a lot about his strong work ethic and his attitude. So you took the 40,000, you opened your place, and youre doing business. Adelo yes. Lemonis making money. Adelo and its awesome. Lemonis okay. Adelo its three tables. Then we bumped it to 20 tables. So i bought the tortilla machine. All of a sudden, it starts booming. You know what . Lets open a tortilla business, but a bigger one. Lemonis okay. Adelo im gonna be the biggest tortilla manufacturer in the world. Lemonis so, before, you had a small restaurant, small tortilla manufacturing. Everythings small and tight. Youre making money. And then all of a sudden you wake up one day. Youre like, im gonna be. Adelo mission. Lemonis mission, the tortilla manufacturer . Adelo yes. Lemonis its like saying wonder bread. Adelo even bigger. 2006, we opened the factory. Everythings going well. In 2010, Mission Comes to the east coast. They werent here. Holy crap. They knocked us out big time. The first order that any supermarket ordered was free. Lemonis because thats marketing expense for them. You buy one, become your friend. Then you buy 1,000. Adelo right. When i went that week, they were telling me, listen, you got to give us free stuff. This guys giving us free. So im like, dude, how can i do that, man . Theyre mission. And they all started just. Lemonis going away. Adelo yeah. Lemonis what were you doing in total tortilla sales . Adelo like 400,000. Lemonis and it went from 400,000 to. Adelo last year was 220,000. Lemonis still doing 220,000 . Adelo thank god. Lemonis 220,000 in tortilla sales separate from this. Adelo yeah. Lemonis think about it. A bigger name competitor with many more resources powers into his market. And hes not even down 50 . This guy must be one hell of a salesman. Make any money in the restaurant . Adelo yeah. But it all goes to the factory thats losing money. Lemonis these are the tortillas . Adelo thats it. Lemonis corn. Adelo corn. Lemonis flour. Adelo corn. Lemonis thats pretty good. Its really good, actually. Corn tortillas can be very mealy if theyre not done right. They can be sandy and gritty. Adelo yes. Lemonis yours is way better. By the way, the foods fantastic, fantastic. Adelo thank you. Lemonis ive had a lot of tortillas in my life. And you can tell that the product just had a lot of character and authenticity to it. The texture and the flavor tastes less processed. Whos that . Adelo my munchkin. Lemonis im marcus. Nice to meet you. Is that your dad . Your only child . Adelo yeah. Lemonis do you work here now and help out . Rachel i help, but i dont work. Adelo oh, yeah, you dont work but. Lemonis she helps. Well, nice meeting you. Adelo okay, go change so you can go to school. Lemonis youre a single dad . Adelo no. Shes with her mother. Were 50 50. Lemonis when you have her, youre raising her by yourself. Adelo yeah. Lemonis is it hard . Adelo you know what . Its the most awesomest thing ever. I love it. Lemonis whats your connection to george lopez . All of a sudden, i started getting messages from george. Hes like, you got to invest in this guy. Hes a great guy. Adelo i invited him to the restaurant. Lemonis how did you get a hold of him . Adelo twitter. He was performing right around the corner. He comes in. Hes like, yeah, wheres my tacos . So im like, yeah, well make em right now. [ both laugh ] so were making them. Lemonis well, he sends me a note. He said, you got to help my guy out. So what i told george is i dont have a ton of interest, if any, in investing in a restaurant just because its not scalable. Its really the tortilla business. Adelo okay. Like, we could do more. We could do 10, 15 products of flour tortillas. We could do cheese. We could do mexican cheese. We could do mexican sodas. We could do cheese ceviche. No ones lemonis maybe you start with tortillas. Adelo of course, of course. [ laughs ] lemonis i like the fact that he has a lot of enthusiasm. But im not really sure if i would lead my Product Offering with raw fish. Thats just me. Heres what id like to do. I dont know if theres any partnership opportunity. But i want to head over to the factory. Adelo okay. Man [ shouts in spanish ] lemonis how are you . Adelo all right. Lemonis why dont we take a tour . Adelo so this it. Lemonis how big is the factory . Adelo 2,200 square feet. Lemonis so show me the process. Adelo all right. Lemonis how do you mix this . Here . How do you know how long to mix it . Adelo just by guessing. Lemonis guessing like, uh, it feels like 5 minutes . Adelo yeah. Lemonis flour and water. And so what makes this so different . Adelo right there. This is our secret. Lemonis so why is this the secret . We cant buy this machine . Adelo mexico. Lemonis only in mexico . Adelo yeah, here, theyre not so much allowed. Lemonis why arent they allowed . Adelo because they dont have safety. See that thing that lemonis people get their hands cut . Adelo but no one has. Lemonis ive seen some pretty careless operations in my time. But this one, its up there. First, he tells me that he uses guestimates to make his dough. And i cant imagine it makes for a very consistent product. Then he tells me that his machinerys not compliant. He could be shut down, sued, who knows what. And he just brushes it off like its no big deal. Adelo not so illegal. We could fix it. Lemonis and by the way, this place looks like a disaster zone. Adelo this is where i store equipment that we have. Lemonis was there a fire here . Adelo fire . No. Lemonis are you sure . Adelo yeah. Lemonis ceiling just looks like that . Adelo its the sweat of the tortilla. Lemonis i understand that hes a guy that doesnt get discouraged by things. But i didnt think that included running your business the proper way or following the law. How many can this thing make in a day . Adelo 6,000 an hour. Lemonis lets say youre gonna produce for 5 hours a day cause you got setup time and cleanup time. Adelo we do about 6 hours. Lemonis you should be able to make 36,000 pieces, right . How many go in each package . Adelo 30. Lemonis thats 1,200 bags a day. Youre gonna sell the bags for. Adelo 2. Lemonis thats 2,400 a day. Wheres your loading dock . Adelo oh, right there. Lemonis a semi can come there . Adelo well, no, not that. Lemonis we have a factory with an illegal machine. Were not really clean. You can only make a certain amount a day. And if you make more, you cant distribute them anyway. No way in hell any distributor of mine would ever allow a product to come out of here. The fact that hes doing 250,000 worth of business out of this place, look, ill give him some credit for that. But the fact that hes ignoring any standard business practice or ignoring all the codes or any compliance with any food safety, well, thats a problem. And even if all of that gets fixed, this place really isnt set up to do any volume. How you doing . Im marcus. Johnny im johnny. Lemonis nice to meet you. What do you do here . Johnny so, i do the tortillas. Lemonis whats it like working for adelo . Johnny oh, its been great. Lemonis is he a hard worker . Johnny oh, yeah. Lemonis whats the worst part of working here . Johnny the worst part . He owes me from the past days. Lemonis he does owe you . Johnny yeah, he still owes me for the back. Lemonis nice meeting you, my man. I was under the impression that the tortilla business was doing at least good enough to pay people. So what i want to do is i want to dig into the financials because where theres smoke, theres fire. So how much revenue can this place generate in a given day . 2,400. Adelo 2,400. Lemonis now, what have your margins been historically . Adelo 40 . Lemonis so take 40 of that. Adelo 960. Lemonis 960 in gross profit. What are the things that go into operating . Adelo electricity. Lemonis how much is that a day . Adelo 60. Lemonis how much is the rent . Adelo 3,000 lemonis put 100 in there. Adelo insurance is about 50. Lemonis thats workers comp insurance, making sure okay. Adelo yeah. Payroll. Lemonis so four people. What do you pay them on average an hour . Lets say 12. So thats 48 an hour times 8. Thats 384. Plus taxes, add another 40, and 100 in packaging. You have automobile expense, 900 a month. So 764 a day to run this place. The gross profit was 960 a day. So what does that leave you with . Adelo 196. Lemonis 196 in net profit a day, assuming that everything went perfect. Adelo no, no, no. Lemonis and by the way, you are not in that payroll number, just so you know. What im trying to show adelo is that this place takes more to operate than it generates in gross profit. And if thats the case, its really only a matter of time. Do you ever miss a payroll . Adelo yes. I owe 50,000. Lemonis how much did this cost to open . Adelo 400. Lemonis what was it before . Adelo it was nothing. It was just an empty spot. Lemonis so how many investors . Adelo none. Lemonis how many people lend you money . Adelo my sister. Lemonis how much . Adelo that was 150,000. Lemonis i mean, she must love tortillas. Adelo ah, she loves me. She raised me. Lemonis what do you mean she raised you . Adelo she brought me from mexico when i was 5. My dad i was 2 years old when he passed away. And my mother abandoned us. And she just brought us here, me and my brother. Everyone told me when i was a kid i was never gonna be somebody. And. Iim not gonna give up. I dont want to give up. Lemonis coming to this country, not having resources, having a notsogreat upbringing, and then working every day, bell to bell, to provide for his family and have a Brighter Future this guy, in my opinion, represents the true american dream. So what i have to figure out is what am i actually being asked to invest in . What is it . Adelo distribution. Lemonis you cant invest in distribution. Adelo you could invest in me. Lemonis okay. Adelo and i will work my butt off. Lemonis your tortilla was amazing. The food was good at the restaurant. I think you have a lot of character. And i think you have a lot of fight. And clearly, you have a work ethic. And thats hard to find. So im willing to think about it, okay . Adelo thank you, marcus. Lemonis all right, my friend. Good seeing you. Adelo all right. Lemonis hi, buddy. How are you . Adelo marcus. Lemonis good to see you. Adelo good to see you. Lemonis about a weeks gone by. And i felt that i needed to give adelo a chance to understand exactly where my head was at. And so i asked him to come in to my Office Inside the city. In order to fix this business, it would take about 500,000. The Tortilla Factory loses money. And its not compliant. Its a bad idea for you. Its a bad idea for me. Adelo marcus, i mean, ive seen you fix manufacturing. Lemonis i know, buddy. But i just its not something that i think is a good idea. We did the math. I think that you have a lot of heart. I think youre a kickass salesperson. I enjoyed my meal with you at the restaurant. I thought the food was great. But i also am a businessperson. I cant throw money into the wind. Adelo i know i could be someone, marcus. Lemonis so do i. I know you can be somebody, too, cause i already think you are somebody. And i am willing to take a chance on you. But the kind of partnership that im willing to invest in is different than ive ever done. Its not me investing in the Tortilla Factory. That factory will need to close. The place is bleeding. It owes people money. Its just its not gonna work. Adelo so whats the idea . Whats the plan . Lemonis im gonna go get the idea. Ill be right back. Adelo now . Lemonis right now. Imy moderate to severeng crohns disease. I didnt think there was anything else to talk about. But then i realized there was. So, i finally broke the silence with my doctor about what i was experiencing. He said humira is for people like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohns disease. In clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. And many achieved remission. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. If youre still just managing your symptoms, talk with your gastroenterologist about humira. With humira, remission is possible. When you find something worth waiting for, well help you invest to protect it for the future. Financial guidance while youre mastering life. From chase, so you can. Adlemonis im gonna goea . Wget the idea. N . Ill be right back. Adelo [ laughs ] george [ speaks spanish ] all right. Lemonis george sent me a lot of notes and took a lot of his time saying, take a chance on adelo. George you know what i liked . What you saw i liked his determination. I liked his heart. Foods delicious. I mean, if this guy was a boxer, hed be world champ. Theres nothing that could stop him. Lemonis so heres my idea. My offer is to put 150,000 into a new hispanic food company. Adelo, youll have 1 3 of the business, ill have 1 3 of the business, and george will have 1 3 of the business. Two amigos and a gringo. [ laughter ] adelo okay. Lemonis two amigos is creating a new entity thats a food Consumer Products company in the hispanic space. Adelo has a real knowledge about hispanic heritage food. George has the ability to market the business. But he doesnt really have the time to work on it. And i bring the business experience to the table. What i need from you, george, is i want to be able to use your likeness and your endorsement in exchange for equity and a royalty on the packaging. Youll have full approval. And were gonna ensure that the people who enjoy our food know that its the best quality coming from the best places, and it was authorized by you with all of your talent, all of your assets, all of your knowledge. With adelos expertise, i know we could develop some amazing products. But if hes gonna throw his hat in the ring on this one, hes gonna have to be 100 dedicated. And that factorys gonna have to close. Ill be glad to take care of the employees out of the companys money, 50,000 for your employees. Adelo okay. But my sister, i owe her money. George she put her money up when it mattered. Adelo yes, when it mattered. Thats the money i owe her. Lemonis okay. And you have equipment. Figure out how to sell all that equipment. Sell every chair, every plate, every table, every picture, every tortilla so you can pay your sister back. Adelo okay. Lemonis were gonna go find three or four Authentic Products that we think both the Mexican Community and nonMexican Community would love. And were gonna create a whole brand. George, what do you think three or four things would be . George you got to look at salsa, you know, chips. Im gonna have you write up, what are some other other products that you would put out there . Whats the history of them . Why do you think its gonna sell . George and you want to sell to everybody, not just the neighborhood. Lemonis im still gonna want to review it and approve it. Its not a done deal, slam dunk. Hes got his brand and his reputation. Maybe he doesnt like any of it. Its possible. You have to be prepared for that. George i feel a little unsure, to tell you the truth. Lemonis you do . George yeah. Lemonis of him. George yeah. Its a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice in the beginning. Lemonis its the details for me. You have to do your research, okay . Adelo youre taking a chance on me. And im not gonna let you down. Lemonis okay. Do we have a deal . Adelo deal. Lemonis okay. Do we