Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - Is This Christmas Tree Business Worth $65K?

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Looking to buy a Christmas tree lot business? This episode breaks down a deal for a Utah-based seasonal tree venture.Link to business listing: https://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/Seasonal-Christmas-Tree-Business/2232219/🎙️ Sponsors:Franchise Guidance by Connor: Learn the ins and outs of owning and choosing the right franchise. Join Connor’s newsletter or attend his Gateway to Franchise Ownership workshop. Ready to dive in? Click here to schedule a call with Connor.Hold Co Conference 2025: Learn from seasoned business operators and explore how to manage multiple businesses at once. Tickets at holdcoconference.com. Use code AAPod for 10% off!In this episode, the hosts dive into a quirky, seasonal business opportunity—a Christmas tree lot in Utah County, Utah. They evaluate the strengths, challenges, and financials of this $65,000 opportunity, including its potential as a side hustle, the impact of location, and the dynamics of seasonal businesses. Along the way, they discuss the allure of real Christmas trees, competition in seasonal retail, and share humorous anecdotes about past ventures in pop-up businesses like Halloween stores.Key Highlights:- Deal Overview: Asking price, revenue, and cash flow of the Utah-based tree business.- Seasonal Hustle: Pros and cons of owning a six-week-only operation.- Challenges: Issues like securing locations and staffing for seasonal retail.- Tree Wars: Real vs. artificial trees—shifts in customer preferences over decades.- Insights into Similar Businesses: Lessons from pop-up ventures like Halloween stores and fireworks tents.Subscribe to weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking here Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show! Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations. For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

Are you ready to buy a Christmas tree business in southern Utah County? It could be a nice, interesting sort of side hustle. It doesn't produce a whole lot of cash flow, but it's interesting. At first, I was like, I hate this so much. Like, everything about this is terrible. But then as you kept reading, I think it might not be terrible. Well, said Acquisition Anonymous. Hello, another episode of Acquisition Anonymous.

We don't have 100% here. Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous, the Internet's number one podcast today about a Christmas tree lot for sale. So I'm your co-host, Michael Gerdley. myself, Bill and Heather had a great time talking through a Christmas tree lot for sale in Utah. And if not any of those things scare you, you should definitely listen to this deal. There was a lot we liked and a couple things that I totally hated. So what's new me hating a deal? Anyway, here it is.

I hope you enjoyed as much as we did. And let's go. Hey, everybody. If you've listened to the show, you've probably heard us talk about franchises. While franchises can be a great path to business ownership for the right person, like there's a lot of pitfalls. and it's important to be really careful as there are certainly good franchises to be in and bad franchises that you don't want to be in. Connor Gross is a friend of the pod and a resident expert on franchises. And Connor not only owns and operates his portfolio of multiple franchises, but he's also a franchise consultant and helps others work through while picking the right franchise for them.

So as he's sponsoring today's episode, everyone should totally click in the show notes below to join Conner's newsletter and attend one of his Gateway to Franchise Ownership workshops. If you're ready to move and move quickly, schedule a call with Connor and his team today. All right. Who's ready to record a Christmas episode? Merry pre-Christmas. This episode's coming out after Thanksgiving, so it is Christmas. Let's do it. Well, it's the thing you don't think about, like, when people release like Mariah Carey or like those Christmas, like extravaganzas that are like, you know, those big shows that they have on TV, they probably started working on that sometime in May.

They recorded it in September. And it's been getting edited for the past two months. And so there's some poor suckers who are celebrating Christmas in September. And that includes us today, just like us. Yeah. You know that movie read one that all the previews are out for right now? It's the Christmas movie with, I don't know, all the famous people in it. But I picture them like, you know, in March or April recording this.

You know, like it's not at all dressed as Santa Claus like the whole thing in April. Yeah. But they are. This is what you got to do. Indeed. Indeed. Indeed. Well, I brought, since it's, since it's the week before Thanksgiving, I brought a Christmas

deal because that will show up when we edit this and it comes out months from now. Do you guys want to talk about this? Let's do it. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, everybody. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays, et cetera. Okay.

So this is a seasonal Christmas tree business located in Utah County, Utah. And it says it's relocatable. So we'll see if that happens. Okay. Asking price is $65,000 and cash flow is $29,000. So they are charging approximately two times cash flow. Gross revenue is $85,000. Inventory is $1,750.

EBITDA is not applicable. It was established in 2013 and it has $2,000 worth of furniture, fixtures, and equipment. It is time to start Xmas planning is the headline here, Heather. This long-established Christmas tree business in southern Utah County, has a loyal customer base. The business uses high-quality trees sourced from trusted suppliers in Utah

to provide a high-quality Christmas tree buying experience. Customers rely on them to provide a fun family experience and an authentic Christmas tree year after year. It has six employees, inventory and furniture fixtures and equipment are included in the asking price. Most of the stuff is in good condition, it says, and operates out of the people's home. And it is a perfect opportunity for a buyer

who can work and or staff the business during the holiday season and grow the business. The buyer would need a place to store the trees and to sell the trees from. Ideally, this will be in southern Utah County to take advantage of the current customers. This is a business with potential for growth that has already developed a dedicated following and positive reviews. The loyal following and reputation for fresh Utah-grown trees has enabled this business to differentiate themselves. Their trees look better and lasts longer than trees brought in from out of state. The owner is willing to provide seller financing with a 10,000.

$10,000 seller note, an interest rate of 5% in a 12-month term. That would make your monthly payments $856.56.7. The seller were offered two weeks of seller trading, and they are looking to sell this business because they want to pursue other interests. All right. Heather, are you ready to buy a Christmas tree business in southern Utah County? I probably am not, but this is interesting. It is, I don't think it is not relocatable other than maybe you'd move the lot, you know, where they sell the trees from every year.

But, you know, you probably want to be in generally the same area. And it seems like kind of a supply side business is my guess, in that they have access to local Utah trees through a farm, through a farmer. And that's kind of the key to this. They've got to secure the access to the trees and they've got to get a lot set up and get up and get the tents up. and put a staff in place for the, I don't know how many weeks it is, eight weeks. How many weeks do you sell Christmas trees a year? Not even. Not even eight, six, maybe.

Yeah, six weeks, seasonal business. So, you know, it could be a nice, interesting sort of side hustle. It doesn't produce a whole lot of cash flow, but it's interesting. For those people that say this podcast only does multi-million dollar businesses for, you know, institutional capital. here's a business you can own for 60 grand, okay? This is a small business. So I read that, Michael, you're reading this,

and at first I was like, I hate this so much. Like, everything about this is terrible. But then as you kept reading, I think it might not be terrible. Here's why. They're asking 2x, and I think you would negotiate from there. Yeah.

What this probably is, is somebody who has an end with a Christmas tree farmer or two. right and has an in on how to get an empty lot on a short-term two-month lease somewhere nearby, right, in Salt Lake or whatever, whatever Utah town this is in. And it's a, it's arbitrage. I mean, you buy it from these Christmas tree farms, who they want to grow trees. They don't want to sell trees, right? They want to grow trees up in the mountains. They don't want to deal with staffing a lot in Salt Lake City, right? So you're buying trees wholesale, you set them up in your lot, you dress up like Santa Claus, and you sell people Christmas

trees, right? I mean, this is like tried and true as a business model. And I don't think AI is replacing it either. So, you know, you buy this for one year of cash. I always think buy versus build, right? Yeah, in theory, you could replicate this. But like, at the same time, if it's in this lot every single year and people kind of know to expect it, you know, this guy said he started in 2013, you can look at a lot of history, 10 plus years of history. And if this thing is stable as heck, you know, okay, pay one and a half times cash flow for it. Maybe not bad. I would love it if it were bigger, but maybe not bad. So I looked up Utah County, and I pulled that up on the screen here. That is south of Salt Lake City. So it's the county down towards like Lehigh, Linden, Orum, Provo, that kind of stuff. So it's it's south of

Salt Lake, but you're not like, well, some of the stuff we've looked at before, which is like down here, like, you know, like St. George, Utah, ain't no much down there. So you're at least somewhat close to civilization in people and all that class. So this may be whoever's doing this is somewhere around Spanish Fork, Provo, American Fork kind of deal, I'm guessing. Yeah, Provo is right at the base of the mountains. BYU has a has an ETA program and a conference there. It's actually gorgeous campus right. Like you look out the door and you're, you're looking straight at the mountains.

And a lot of little bedroom communities right there. It seems like a pretty good population for a business like this. All right. I'm going to, Bill, I'm going to tell you why this sucks. All right. Michael is so traumatized about businesses where you can only sell for eight weeks a year. Oh, yeah.

Unleash the trauma, Michael. Let's just hear it. Seasonal business anonymous. Look, here's the problem. with this business. They buried the lead, but it's right here. The buyer would need a place to store the trees. Okay, cool. Like, got you. That's fine. And a place to sell the trees from. And like, just like any other retail business, do you know what matters? Where your business is located. The place. And what were you saying? The place.

Oh, the place. Location, location, location. That's what matters in retail. And this business does not have a location. So you want me to pay two times earnings for basically $2,000 worth of equipment and no place to sell and no established customer base. And I don't know about you guys, but I sure as heck, I'm not driving 100 miles to go buy some Christmas tree just because it's from Utah. So it's, anyway, I don't, they had me excited about this bill until there was like no place to sell the trees from. Like, because the hard parts get a location with, you know, in theory, I'm buying a built up location that has customers and they're offering. none of that. So I agree completely. If this is, if you don't get the, if this hasn't been in the

same lot for 10 years and you can continue to be in the same lot for the next 10 years, it's D.O.A. Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of the pop-up, uh, Halloween costume stores. I have looked at these before and a lot of them do not have a standing lease. Um, however, they don't need a lot. They just need a retail location. There's plenty of vacant retail these days. And I think it's a little bit easier. Uh, but, you know, location matters a lot to them too. And so I do think that's kind of how these businesses operate. They don't know exactly where they're going to be able to put their business for that six weeks of the year, every year. And it changes every year.

Heather, you know I was in that business for a while, right, like 15 years ago? What's that? I was in the pop up Halloween business 15 years ago. No, I did not know you were in the Halloween business. Oh, my God. I was in it 15 years ago. So the most fascinating thing about the pop up Halloween business, unlike say, Popup Halloween business, unlike say pop-up Christmas trees or pop-up fireworks is there is just such a massive economy of

scale that happens with those business, which is why basically the pop-ups, there is Spirit Halloween and nobody else. Like it's just totally fascinating. We ended up building our operation up to 12 stores. That was our biggest year. And we did pretty well. We would do 200 to 300,000 a year per store out of Halloween stuff. And it was pretty amazing.

And what we discovered was. was we were getting eaten from the bottom by Walmart and Target, right? Because because the dynamic and we were getting eaten from the side by spirit. So basically the way it works is like in modern society, there is like a hot costume that every like eight year old to 12 year old wants to be. Or let's say five year old to 12 year old. They all want to be Spider-Man. And that's what you want to be.

So what ends up happening is if you want to go buy those like Spider-Man, you can only get Spider-Man as a licensed costume, right? It's copyright. It's copywritten. And what those guys did, which was, and still do, which was the dumbest thing ever because they just destroyed all the independent retailers, was they would give Target and Walmart special cheaper made costumes that they could sell at price points they wanted to.

So let's say $10 would be the retail for a Spider-Man costume at Walmart. It would be cheaper than the one that the company that had the license for Spider-Man would turn around and sell to independent retailers. Like Walmart would be selling them for cheaper than we could sell them. Because it was a different model, but it looked the same. And also they get better pricing to Walmart who would take it from China directly. So like I remember sitting down with the distributor once. And I was like, you know you guys are killing all the independent distributors by doing this.

Like you're giving Walmart a different deal than you give to all of us and you're making it impossible for us to meet. We're all going to go out of business. And all you're going to be left with is Walmart Target, big retailers and spirit. it and they're going to just kill you on prices and you're going to go out of business. And they looked at me and they were like, thank you, sir. That's very nice. And then I looked up about three years ago and guess what happened? The assholes went out of business.

Like I was like, sit there and telling you, I was like, you're going to die. They're going to kill you. You're killing yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And anyway, we died sooner than they did though. So we gave up. I did not know about that.

Wow, that is fascinating. But did you always have a lease? Did you always have a location? Or did you have to scout one out every? year. We tried two different things. We tried putting them in fireworks stores, which sometimes worked, but generally all the fireworks people have discovered not to do that, and most of them don't do it anymore. So we tried that, but then where it really worked, we would go do what Spirit does and go lease unused space. And it's surprisingly easy to do. That was not the problem with the business.

The problem was on the supply side, not on the location side. I kind of feel like the Christmas tree business, though, is better than the Halloween business. Oh, yeah. In that you don't need nearly the variety, like the skew count. You have one skew. It's a tree. Right. And you can probably, because this is local Utah, you can probably get a semi-just-in

time from the tree farm, right? You could probably even negotiate, like, whatever we're left at the end of the season, you eat. We give it back to you or something. So, like, you don't have this massive working capital risk, you know, like you have in Halloween. You don't have this massive kind of like complexity style fashion fad risk like you have in Halloween. It's pretty much just in time. You just double the price and you sell as many as you can, but it comes back to location. You got to be in the right spot where your consumers know it's

going to be. And it also comes back down to staffing. Right? Because like I don't think you want to be wearing a Santa hat slinging Christmas trees for six weeks a year, which is probably functionally a full-time job, or definitely a nights and weekends job, because that's when people want to buy Christmas trees and prevents you from doing anything else. Hey, Michael here, I want to let you know that I'm hosting a conference, first time I've ever done it, and it's called Holdco Conference 2025. If you want to learn how to manage multiple businesses at once, how to incubate new companies, or how other Holco owners and operators run their fleet of companies, then should come to Utah next spring. We've got a ton of great

speakers, including Walker Diibel who wrote buy-in-build and founded Acquisition Lab. Plus, we're hosting it at an all-inclusive mountain resort so you can hit the slopes at the end of the day. Please go to holdcodeconference.com for your tickets and get 10% off with your discount AAPod. That's holdcodeconference.com and use code AAPod for 10% off. Now, back to the show. Maybe say if you already had a business that sold something else seasonal, you know, like in July or around New Year's, you could use some of those same people to staff.

This is a nice add-on for another seasonal holiday business. What do you think, Michael? Yeah. That's definitely an option. One of the challenges there is people tend not to want to do this type of stuff around the New Year's holiday and the Christmas holiday for two reasons. One is the more obvious one. They want to hang out with their family and stuff like that, which is very different than, you know, say Fourth of July where they're like, oh, yeah, I got nothing to do Fourth of July. I'll go, I'll go grill out in a camper next to a stand or tent full of explosives.

The, but the actual, the actual bigger problem with getting people around this time is the weather. And you, so if you have a tent set up like this where you're selling fireworks trees or selling trees outside of Orem, Utah, do you know how cold it is in the winter in Utah? It is not pleasant. So you're freezing your butt off. And I have some stories about sleeping next to a fireworks stand for New Year's Eve. when I was a kid and it would be like 30 degrees. It's not that nice. It's not good.

So yeah, so, but I, you know, it's an interesting thing about the fireworks business bill, that people have tried to come up with seasonal stuff like over and over again to sell besides fireworks and we all end up just selling fireworks. Like fireworks is the best seasonal business. Everybody, everybody who's a fireworks vendor who tries to get into other stuff, whether it's like roses for roses for Valentine's Day, trees,

Halloween, like everybody tried everything and they all end up like trying these things and for the first few years they're like, this is great I'm getting revenue other times. It's going terrific. And then like three years later you're like, they're like, yeah, I'm done with those trees. That was horrible. Never doing that again.

So you go back to fireworks. So it's better just to like spool up the whole operation for the 4th of July, close it down till. new years, spool it up and just work three, two weeks a year and call it good on fireworks, which is the best seasonal thing and don't screw around with Christmas trees or Halloween costumes or whatever. I want to believe that's not the case, but in practice, that keeps happening over and over again.

Well, and isn't this the kind of business that maybe is better to start up than it is to buy? You know, if you don't have a lot and you've got to hire new staff every year, the only thing you're missing as far as a startup is you've got to go develop the relationship with the with the farmers and figure that out. But if you go do that, you could just start it, couldn't you? Well, yeah, that's what I was getting at. Like, you could start it, but if it's cheap enough, I mean, you pay one-time's earnings, right? Because this guy would rather not just shut it down.

He basically wants to get paid to not work for one year. You work one year for free. And you get to step into his relationships with the tree factories. You get the relationship with the lease because it's in the same parking lot every single year, you know, it might be worth one year of profit to not bother standing it up. You know, all the employee, the seasonal folks he calls every single year, like, you know, when it gets cheap enough at some point, it's easier than starting it. Yeah. But that's really what you're buying is the guys to call. Here's the list of the customer or the, the vendor, the landlord,

and the staff. That's it. That's it. That's it. And you want to make sure that they're willing to do business with you as well, right? Because if landlord guy is like, nah, I drank beers with that guy at the bar, there's the only reason I gave him a sweetheart deal. The wrench is doubled. Now you have a problem. Because you definitely don't have a long-term lease because it's a, you know, it's a seasonal lease. Yeah. So there's a lot of risk in it for that. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And if they're, I mean, if it's staffed by mostly family members, you're probably not going to get that staff. No, that's the other problem. That's the other problem. That's the other problem who's staffing it. In a business with $30,000 a year of cash row, the difference between EBITDA and SDE can be miles.

Yeah. Yeah. Can we talk about tailwinds and headwinds on this business? Like, like, what do you guys have? Do you guys do real tree or do you do plastic tree at your house? We do plastic tree. Okay. So I am a real tree purist.

We, I spend an absurd amount of money. I mean, I could have paid for many plastic trees with the amount of real trees that I have bought. But there is something of the Christmas spirit and a real tree. Like you have kids. Like it smells nice in the house. You know, they get to go pick it out. We're actually doing that this weekend. We're going to pick out the tree.

Can't put a price on that. And it smells so good. It does. I love the way it smells. It does. The older I'm getting, the more I love the holiday season. It's just a matter of time. Michael's getting misty.

It's just a matter of time until I moved to Fort Myers, Florida. I'd sit in a condo on the beach. Look at my tree. You're already wearing a festive red shirt, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Heather, are you a real tree purist, or are you part of the plastic tree army? I have a plastic tree. I'm sorry to admit. I started it when the kids were younger, and for me, Christmas has always been a stressful time of year

because I'm in the loan business, and we're always super busy around Christmas with work. So I never could really, like anything extra to have to do around Christmas actually just felt stressful. Now I should probably switch back to a real tree. I could handle it again now. But I feel like I have to use the plastic tree because I have it. Even though I don't have to use it, I feel like I have to. All right. Can we switch to something else?

Oh, the tail wins and headwinds. Let's finish talking about that. So do we think young people are going to continue to be buying fresh trees? Like, do we think that there's a worry about, environmental concerns, any of that kind of stuff? I think you can kind of justify it as a kind of environmental thing to do because they're planting trees. The trees are growing and, you know, the farmer's not going to grow these types of trees if people aren't buying them. I think it's, I don't think there's an environmental concern,

especially in an area like Utah where they probably can just use the water from the sky. I don't know. I don't think young people are going away from this. So I just chat EBT this while we were looking. And actually, weirdly, it's source, It searched the web and cited its sources, which is new. Every time I open chat, GPT, it does more shit. So this says, yes, Christmas trees, artificial trees are becoming increasingly popular. In 1992, about 46% of U.S. households displaying Christmas trees used in artificial tree. By 2004, this figure had risen to 58% artificial trees.

And in a 2018 survey indicated that approximately 75% of Americans who have a Christmas tree, now opt for an artificial one. That seems like a massive jump to me. I did not realize Baham bug was taken over America. Yeah. So it is dying. It is sort of a... It is shrinking.

Demand is shrinking for sure. Interesting. Bill is such a throwback. It's your purest nature. All right. Let's talk about the other piece of thing in here that's just a total piece of BS, which I don't buy it all. All right.

It says, this business uses high, quality trees forced from trusted suppliers in Utah to provide a high quality Christmas tree buying experience. And they make them make you think that this is like a competitive advantage. I am willing to wager whatever you guys want that within a week, I could have an entire trailer load of Christmas trees booked and ready to show up for me that would be just as good as these, if not better. I bet you there are 100 farms that have Christmas trees that I could buy and I could get them here in time for opening up next week right after. Here in this case being Provo, Utah.

Yeah, Provo, Utah. I mean, it's just a truck ride. I mean, all the Texas trees come from Oregon. They all get chopped down there and they drive them down here. So, yeah, I know a little bit about this, actually, living in North Carolina, which North Carolina produces some incredibly outsized portion of the America's Christmas trees. Right. We have a huge number of Christmas trees in North Carolina.

And so like anything that is big, heavy, and bulky, freight is a major part of your cost structure in a Christmas tree, right? So we have cheaper real Christmas trees here in the Carolinas than maybe you do, Michael, say, in Texas, because Christmas trees grow in kind of cold mountain climates, right? Evergreen trees. So it might be a little harder than you think to, or probably easier than you think because there's probably a whole bunch of trees. trees right there in Provo, and it's just a matter of calling somebody and, you know, buying some. But you probably can't necessarily parachute them into San Antonio, Texas as easily because of all the way. Yeah, ours get, I haven't bought a real tree in a while, but usually I would, I would go and do the girly business nerd thing and start asking the people their gross margins and stuff and where they get

their trees from, you know, because that's what you do when you go to somebody's random business and try to buy a $200 tree. but they had told me they were sourcing them the pines and whatever they were sourcing them from Oregon they would come down I think to your point bill like I think people don't really understand how special the southeast of the United States is for lumber production and how much lumber we produce like people do not do not understand how perfect the southeast is for growing trees and producing lumber and all that kind of stuff like I've done some research into it. It's insane in terms of how quickly we can grow.

Remember there. People think it's from the Pacific Northwest. It absolutely is not. It's coming out of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, all that kind of stuff. Georgia Pacific, one of the largest tree and paper product companies in the world. It's named Georgia Pacific for a reason. But yeah, we have beautiful Christmas trees here in the southeast. All right. Any more discussion about this? Otherwise, I'm ready to deliver a verdict if it's not already a surprise, not a surprise. You're ready to poop poo on it. I will so. I don't know that I hate this whole category, but I think you got to pick your spot. This one may be less good because it doesn't seem like to have a specific location.

Here in Charlotte, I will tell you the flip side of this coin, there is this one Christmas tree place that's on the, it takes over the farmer's market. Like there's a lot in town that is like usually the farmer's market. And then in November or December, it becomes the Christmas tree spot. These people print. I mean, they are running trucks like every day from the mountains. of North Carolina and like you can't get a parking spot. I mean, it is unbelievable the volume of trees they move through this lot, which is probably, I don't know, five to 10,000 square foot lot.

And it's gravel. Like there's no infrastructure. They, you know, they're just trucking them in. They stand them up. It sits there for an hour before it's gone. And I bet that is a great business. All right. I will one up you now.

And I will tell you the greatest Christmas business I've ever seen. Greatest Christian. It is this place. Okay, you know where Texas A&M is located. I'm looking at Heather. Heather, do you know? In Texas. Okay.

Heather, do you know where Texas is? It's like far east, Riverside. Okay. You just keep going to Riverside. It's that big thing in the middle down south. Yes. It's where the cows are and the oil comes from. Okay.

Right. So there's the triangle of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, right? And then Austin's on one of the edges. there was this kind of place in the middle west of hughston called college station where texas a and m is located it's our historical kind of you know agricultural mechanical university um believe it or not bill my grandfather was captain of the 1939 national champion texas a and m football team his name his name his name was pinky so there you go um so so i was driving through uh brian a couple years ago down this highway called Highway 6 and College Station.

So there's Brian College Station, the two towns together. And I see this line of cars that literally Bill is like four miles long to get into something. It's like pet adoption day at the natural dog code. Like that's how crazy it was. And everybody was lined up at this place called Santa's Wonderland to get into it. And it is basically a theme park that they have built that is totally. Totally Christmas stuff. And I'm pulling up the pictures here.

It looks fun. And everything's lit up. Like they're selling you eggnog. Like the whole thing is just like crazy. So here's an aerial picture of the thing. And I'll pull up the website here. But they were just like you do horse and carriage rides, ice skating. And then you can buy a season pass if you want to come back to celebrate the holidays more than once.

I'm coming. How long is the drive to College Station, Texas, or North Carolina? I know. I'm bringing my kids. I'm all in. So it's far. So to get in is $56 to get into this thing. Yeah, yeah. They start right around now. So today, they would have opened up yesterday, November 25th. And you get into the Wonderland admission, the dazzling trail of flights, a hayride, snowplay, thrilling snow tubing, naughty, our nice list enrollment.

Heather, perfect for you. full rides the most Texas thing ever but just crazy but they must have had several thousand people going through this thing bill I mean it was just insane

oh I was sharing no marginal cost either no huge fix yeah huge fixed cost no marginal cost that looks fine but yeah I mean look at you could see here the picture of the aerial I have my mouse over it there must be 300 cars

just in the picture we have in a line to get in just totally crazy this sounds awesome i love it yeah ice skating so but yeah i mean it's this one of those like dreams you have right like you bring in 3 000 people a night at 50 dollars a person right and you're just like printing money and then you just like shut her all down and walk the gate just dormant for 11 months a year like it's a permanent installation. There's just nothing there. Oh, that's interesting. I feel like they should sell some fireworks out of there for the rest of the year or something. There's actually a fireworks store down the street.

I can tell you where it is. Yeah, so here's the park map. It's basically like Ebbcot for Christmas. Yeah, that's cute. I'm into it. This is great. Yeah. Yeah, and they have all the stuff here. I feel like the fairgrounds should do that. You know, like the local county fairgrounds.

That would be a business right. there. But unlike a Disney or something like that where you're spreading out your guests throughout the year, like you're just like cramming them all in at once. And these guys are probably taken home two or three million dollars a year, like just in net profit. Because the thing just, there's no marginal cost. Like everything's, everything's profit coming through. I mean, all you got to worry about is your ice skating and melting in the Texas heat. Just crazy. It's totally crazy. All right. Sorry, I get really excited about this. At some point, If anybody has any inside information on Santa's Wonderland, you've got to send a stuff.

But, yeah, I mean, the line of cars literally was four miles long. At some point, I'll try to pull out the video and set it to you guys. That part doesn't sound fun. I'm anti-crowdbed. Oh, I thought you would be anti-customers. That doesn't sound very much. No, I'm sorry. I'm just, yeah, I'm sorry.

I'm thinking of as I'm being a guest here, not an owner. Sorry. What, uh, okay. Okay. Well, what do you guys think about this Christmas gene deal? Oh. Hold on. I found the picture of my grandfather. Here, check this out. Pinky. Yeah, Pinky. Where's my grandfather in here? Yeah, I was at a restaurant and college station and I saw this. So his name is George Williams.

And this was over by the bathroom. And I've got to figure out where he is and what he's he's such a handsome man. All these guys look. the same. Yes, they do. I don't know how you. Identical clones. Man. All right. I'll I'll figure out which one he is. But yeah, there's a George Williams. That's my grandfather. But yeah. So they nicely at their restaurant and college station put this by, put this by the bathroom. So yeah, my grandfather's somewhere in this photo.

But yeah, go ahead. So thumbs up, thumbs down on Chris's tree deal. Oh, here's the Christmas tree thing. Ah, humbug. Heather's a thumbs down. Yeah, I'm a Grinch. I'd rather start it than buy it. Michael, you love all seasonal businesses, right? I think this would be a good business to be in.

You need a good location. Without a location, this is a total waste of time. Like, I wouldn't buy, I wouldn't spend two times earnings if I have to go find the location. So if they threw in a good location, I would be totally all over this. I think it totally works. but otherwise, like, don't waste my time unless you're going to help me do the hardest part, which is getting a good location. Yeah, I actually do like the category.

This one is a little tough. It's a little small in like one full-time employee wipes out your entire year's earnings. But like this type of business, like it's an institution in a town and has half a million or a million bucks of earnings, I'm very into. So if you are listening to this episode and you know the business like that for sale, tweet it to us. we would love to chat with you on X about the Christmas tree deal. And also if you like this one, go on our website, acqueu anon.com, where we have all 350 plus deals that we have ever reviewed, all categorized by industry.

I don't think there are any Christmas tree deals on there, but I know there is at least one Halloween costume deal on there because I specifically remember doing it. So if you're into that, go find it on our website. And with that, I think that's all we got. Merry Christmas, happy Thanksgiving.