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Marcus Lemonis is back for season 4 of “The Profit,” lending his business expertise to struggling businesses. In the premiere episode, Lemonis helps revive family restaurant chain Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour. Though two business partners brought the nostalgic ice cream parlour back to life just a few years ago, their efforts have ultimately led to a meltdown.

Lemonis steps into the Americana-themed parlour, complete with plenty of sundaes and ice cream floats. He quickly sees issues; the updated birthday song is a huge turnoff to customers, the menu offers too much of a selection and there’s a huge disconnect between the business partners, including not even knowing their numbers. Though they have fond memories of Farrell’s, Lemonis notes how leadership could be causing some major problems.

The partners also explain that the ice cream they use is not the original brand. He also sees a disconnect in the merchandising, from bacon soda to Pez dispensers and Dill pickle popcorn. The director of marketing hopes to bring back the old-time create-your-own barrels of candy.

In one of their worst-performing locations, Lemonis sees problems in the presentation of the food, broken equipment and that the noise level is too high. Three out of their five locations turn a profit, with the other two accruing huge amounts of debt, which keeps the company in the red zone. The director of marketing sees the root cause of their problems as simply growing too fast.

If he makes an investment, Lemonis would want to take the restaurants back to their original concept and set a standard, however, he’s unsure as to whether or not he could actually partner with the business owners, who can’t seem to own up to their failures. He offers $750,000 for 51 percent of Farrell’s, which they accept.

He meets with the rest of the employees to discuss the deal and the actions going forward. They all seem excited to start anew and rev up their customer experience by visiting a popular restaurant in Universal Studios. Their chef recommends limiting their menu items and makes suggestions on how to better present the food on the plate. They also visit a candy shop to get inspiration on how to present their own wall of candy. The potential mess of dispensers worries the HR & merchandising director, but most agree that it would go over well with people creating goodie bags.

Lemonis then takes the directors of HR & merchandising and marketing aside to talk out their obvious differences, with the marketing director displaying her frustration over how potentially innovative changes are never implemented. The HR director finds it awkward that the director of marketing is the daughter of one of the owners. They agree that going forward, the director of marketing has 100 percent control over all marketing efforts, partially solving the Product issue.

Since the People aspect of the business has been assuaged (at least between the directors), they move on to Process next. They check out how to improve their equipment, as well as getting back to the original recipe. But some efforts are quickly pushed to the side by the CEO refusing to accept accountability. The directors of marketing and HR also test their relationship by trying to decide how to redesign their candy space. However, the HR director is still unwilling to change and Lemonis encourages her to take a step back.

They begin renovations and expansions, as well as begin to figure out how to save money. First, they look at new equipment and also eliminate menu items that don’t relate back to the brand. Despite stabilizing the company, Lemonis’s efforts could be thwarted. The partners say they don’t have enough to even pay rent, and Lemonis says that they miscalculated the costs by $200,000. The issues of a constant “blame game” of accountability and integrity are once again put on the table and Lemonis decides to get to the bottom of it.

The business partners then ask if Lemonis would loan them money, which he promptly declines. They decide to close their doors in Rancho given the ongoing issues facing the restaurant. They offer a five percent share to the Rancho manager so that he can continue working with the restaurants.

Despite some minor issues on the morning of the grand reopening, the store still manages to offer a truly nostalgic experience to customers. The updated candy section goes off without a hitch, the new food presentation and birthday song represent the brand better and Lemonis leaves knowing leadership is in a better position than when it started.

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Photo credit: AngryJulieMonday, Flickr