By Fielding Buck
The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Calif.
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) If you watched Tuesday’s season premiere of CNBC’s “The Profit”, you already know that Entrepreneur Marcus Lemonis is working his magic with Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour. Part of the episode focused on the menu (which was problematic because it offered WAY TOO MANY items). For a peek at the NEW menu under Marcus’s guidance read on, or simply head to www.farrellsusa.com
Don’t forget to check out “THE PROFIT” Tuesday nights at 10p ET on CNBC
Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour in Riverside is serving a menu inspired by the CNBC series “The Profit.”
Eight items range from appetizers such as $9 grilled cheese and tomato soup shots to a $13 Chicken Laredo Sandwich with pepper jack cheese and a pair of alcohol infused desserts, a shake with Chocolate Shop wine and hard root beer floats for $9.
The menu is the first in a series of changes announced for the restaurant as the troubled chain struggles to rebuild its reputation and become profitable.
“The Profit” is an unscripted series in which entrepreneur Marcus Lemonis coaches owners of businesses that are going under.
In Tuesday’s season premiere, Lemonis was shown offering chief executive officer Mike Fleming and president Paul Kramer $750,000 to upgrade Farrell’s restaurants in return for 51 percent of the company.
“…We have already begun our journey with Marcus and his team to improve our people, process, and product,” the menu reads. “Here’s a little taste of what’s to come!”
Farrell’s was originally a family chain of full service restaurants that served enormous ice cream desserts such as The Zoo and The Trough in a boisterous kids party atmosphere. It died off in the late 1980s but was revived in 2009. The Riverside restaurant opened with fanfare off of La Sierra Avenue in 2013.
In “The Profit,” Fleming and Kramer told Lemonis the company was nearly $2 million in debt. At the time, it had five restaurants. Two, in Rancho Cucamonga and Sacramento, closed at the end of July.
Fleming and Kramer told Lemonis it had three restaurants turning profits. Riverside was earning the least, with $70,000.
The Buena Park restaurant was earning $359,000, and Brea was earning $200,000.
Staff told Lemonis that profits, including Riverside’s, were shoring up Rancho Cucamonga and Sacramento, which were $92,000 and $300,000 in the hole, respectively.
No time frame was given for the numbers.
Lemonis said the strategy is to first upgrade Buena Park, the most profitable site, and then roll out changes to the other two restaurants. In the episode, he visited Brea and talked with the staff. There was no footage of Riverside.
The $750,000 was earmarked for buying kitchen equipment, redoing candy stores in the front of each restaurant, and improving the ice cream.
The episode showed Lemonis telling Fleming and Kramer that the company’s only assets were its property and the brand.
“Going forward, these locations either win on their own or they die on their own,” he said.
