The Profit - Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour Restaurants Update

Photo - CNBC

Tonight on the season premiere of The Profit Marcus Lemonis is in Buena Park, California with hopes of making a deal with Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour Restaurants. Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour is a chain of restaurants that specialize in ice cream sundaes and also have food and a candy store.  The Farrell's brand once had 130 locations, but after new owners took over all locations eventually closed.  In 2009 the current owners decided to try to resurrect the brand.  They are currently having issue with a few stores losing money and may have expanded too quickly.

Let's take a look at some information related to Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour Restaurants as well as what kind of deal was made on the show.





News and Links Related To The Company:

• Here is an extended sneak peak of the episode from The Profit Facebook page which has the first 16 minutes of the episode.
• Here is the Farrell's Ice Cream website and their Facebook Page 
• The History section of Farrell's Ice Cream gives the back story of the company.  It went from 130 locations down to zero, and someone tried to bring it back in 1996, but legal issues from 2003-2008 stopped development.  In 2009 the owners featured on The Profit began to expand Farrell's.
• There are currently five locations of Farrell's Ice Cream with four in California (Brea, Riverside, Buena Park, Santa Clarita) and one in Hawaii.
• On August 1, 2016, the Sacramento location of Farrell's abruptly closed after they were unable to come to an agreement over its lease and because it was losing money (Link).  Around the same time the Rancho Cucamonga location also closed for the same reasons (Link).  Back in January 2016, a Mission Viejo location of Farrell's closed (Link).
• Marcus Lemonis responded to articles about the Sacramento closing on Twitter by saying "Stay Tuned" and "Let's see what happens on August 23rd" (Link)
• An article right before the episode aired had some details on the changes made to Farrell's by Marcus Lemonis.  Farrell's is "changing its ice cream recipe, enhancing the food and revamping the in-store candy shops."  They will be using Bob Farrell's original recipes and it will be made by Thrifty Ice Cream.  The changes will be rolled out after the episode of The Profit airs and the company said they currently have no plans to expand any time soon.  Marcus spent seven months shooting at the Buena Park location for the show.
• Sweet Pete's (season 2) helped with the candy store makeover around July 2016 (Link).

The Deal From The Episode Plus Post-Show Updates (this will be updated continually):

• The Deal - $750,000 for 51% of the business.  The money would go into the stores and the Buena Park location would be the prototype for other locations.  Later on Travis was given 5% equity of the company, which came out of Marcus' share.
• As stated above the Rancho Cucamonga and Sacramento locations of Farrell's have closed.
• Farrell's now has a candy shop called Farrell's Candy Shoppe that sells candy online.  Here is the website.  The candy sold on the site includes candy hand crafted from Sweet Pete's (season 2 of The Profit).
• UPDATE 2/2017 - Farrell's closed its Buena Park location at the end of January 2017.  It will be reopened in mid-March after a remodel.  Marcus Lemonis said Farrell's owed their landlord nine months in rent which was around $200,000 and that he had to loan money to pay employees. Marcus worked out a new lease with the landlord on his own in 48 hours.  Marcus said he has full control over the brand and doesn't own the restaurants.  The locations are run by licensees who pay him royalties to remain open.  Marcus also said that Mike Fleming and Paul Kramer no longer have an equity stake in the brand. (Link)
• UPDATE 4/2017 - The Buena Park location did not open in mid-March as expected and it remains closed. (Link)
• UPDATE 6/2017 - The Buena Park location is still closed, but the restaurant responded to a post on their Facebook page that they expect to open at the end of June. (Link)
• UPDATE 8/2017 - The Riverside location closed in late July.  The Brea location remains open and pays a licensing fee to Marcus Lemonis.  The Buena Park location had a few delays and should open soon.  It will now be called Sweet Pete's Farrell's and will have a Sweet Pete's candy shop.  (Link)
• It looks like the Buena Park Sweet Pete's Farrell's location will open at 5pm on 8/18/2017 (Link).
• UPDATE 11/2017 - Farrell's has a location planned above an existing Sweet Pete's location in Atlanta, GA.  It is scheduled to open in February 2018. (Link)
• UPDATE 4/2018 - The location in Atlanta never opened and an Overton's is scheduled to open in its place. (Link)
• UPDATE 1/2019 - The Farrell's in Buena Park is closed.  Marcus Lemonis responded to a question on Twitter about it being closed, stating "Cutting losses. Gave it time and couldn’t cash flow enough to make sense."  
• UPDATE 6/2019 - The Farrell's in Brea (owned by a private group of investors) closed meaning there are no Farrell's locations left.  Marcus Lemonis still owns the brand and concept, but for now there are no plans for using it. (Link)

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