Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - Would You Buy a 101-Year-Old Food Business?

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

In this episode the hosts break down the sale of a 100-year-old Washington, D.C. specialty food institution, debating whether its legendary brand and seller financing outweigh razor-thin restaurant margins and a confusing listing.Business Listing – https://www.bizbuysell.com/business-opportunity/over-a-century-in-specialty-food-business-rare-opportunity/2526833/Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous – the #1 podcast for small business M&A. Every week, we break down businesses for sale and talk about buying, operating, and growing them.Looking to build a professional website in minutes? Try Wix: https://wix.pxf.io/c/6898629/3115214/25616?trafcat=templateHubSpot is the backbone for how businesses scale without chaos. Try them out here: https://go.try-hubspot.com/OeG9VrSubscribe for more episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@AcquisitionsAnonymousPodcast?sub_confirmation=1Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.acquanon.com/newsletterSponsors:FRANZY - Thinking about buying a franchise instead of an independent business? FRANZY is a free platform built for acquisition-minded entrepreneurs who want to explore franchise ownership without broker bias. FRANZY matches you with franchise opportunities based on your capital, goals, and lifestyle—and includes free coaching from experienced franchise operators. If you're exploring ETA but want a structured, system-driven alternative, check out https://franzy.com/ Quiet Light Brokerage specializes in helping entrepreneurs buy and sell businesses with experienced operators as brokers. They offer a free valuation clarity call to help owners understand what their business is worth and how to increase its value before selling. Learn more at https://quietlight.com/This week the Acquisitions Anonymous crew analyzes a century-old Washington, D.C. specialty food business listed for $950,000, generating approximately $3.3 million in annual revenue and $205,000 in EBITDA. The business includes prepared foods, sandwiches, charcuterie offerings, and a long-established reputation dating back to 1925, with the seller offering financing as part of the deal.What initially appears to be a straightforward specialty food acquisition quickly turns into a mystery. The listing contains conflicting details about the facilities, mentions a "home-based" operation despite having a retail presence, and leaves major questions unanswered about multiple locations, revenue allocation, and the role of its gift basket and catering operations. The hosts discuss why poor presentation can scare away buyers—even when the underlying business may be stronger than it appears.The conversation expands into restaurant economics, succession planning, seller financing, and the challenge of buying legacy businesses with thin margins. While everyone agrees the brand carries real value, they debate whether a buyer could successfully expand it through packaged consumer products, franchising, or additional locations—or whether this is simply a demanding retail operation with limited upside.Key Highlights- 100-year-old Washington, D.C. specialty food business listed for $950K with $205K EBITDA on $3.3M revenue- Seller is willing to provide financing, suggesting flexibility but also shifting post-close risk- Confusing listing raises major diligence questions about locations, facilities, and operating structure- Hosts discuss leveraging a historic local brand into packaged consumer products or multi-location growth- Great example of how a poorly written listing can hide a potentially interesting acquisition opportunitySubscribe to  weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking hereDo 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]

Michael here, welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous. Today's deal was in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., an involved barbecue, a converted old house, and a seller with a listing that if you said it out loud, was a very bad word. So I think you'll enjoy this one. Here's the episode. We'll say, Acquisition Anonymous. Hello, another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. We don't have 100% beers anymore.

And thumbs downing on just the plus inventory line. One of the biggest risks in entrepreneurship through acquisition is buying a business with fragile systems. Unclear demand or a single owner who holds all the knowledge. Franchising approaches that problem differently. You are buying into an established brand with documented systems, unit level data, and repeatable operating playbooks. The heart part is knowing which franchises are actually worth evaluating. That's why Alex Moresniak, former CEO of Two-U laundry, built Franzy. Franzy is a free platform that helps acquisition-minded entrepreneurs explore franchise ownership without broker bias.

You answer a few questions and Franzy shows you franchise opportunities. that align with your capital, lifestyle, and long-term goals. You also get free coaching from people who have actually built and scaled franchise businesses. If you're exploring ETA and want to understand whether franchising fits your acquisition strategy, visit franzi.com. That's F-R-A-N-Z-Y. Dot com. And thanks to them for sponsoring today's episode. Brad, you know that meme on the internet, the one where like the mad scientist is in front of like a board full of like a bunch of pieces of paper? I knew where this was going right when you started a bit. One of my favorites. I can never find it when I'm looking for it.

It's Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I love that. Plus a beautiful mind. Does anybody else on the podcast right now remind you of that? I need to like dishevel my hair and kind of like, you know, look like it's a little bit better. If you're not on video listening to this,

that was really, really perfect. 10 out of 10. So, Brad, thanks for being here, man. Special returning guest host. We didn't scare you off the first time. Thank you. Glad to be here. So what's new with you guys at Quietlight?

You know, we're in the summer season. It's getting ready to end. So probably our busiest season of the year starts around Labor Day just after. Summer's kind of weird. You get different buyers in the summer. And a lot of your larger deal buyers are a little bit gone. So you do see some strange behavior in the summer. It's not always consistent.

You get different types of deals sold in the summer. So I'm looking forward to kind of hitting the fall running. We're doing quite well. Quite like this year, we matched our 2025 revenue in the month of June. So things have picked up pretty dramatically across the board. And we've added some new advisors. We've got 15 advisors on the team now. That's crazy.

Does revenue for brokerage usually fluctuate that much, Brett, like where you could have a full year and then six months of the year, but back and forth? I've never seen us do the previous year's revenue in six months. We're on record pace for all time. So we've been down a little bit since 2021. Really, as interest rates went up, our market kind of froze a little bit. And we've kind of been fighting that. And we do some private equity deals, not super large. We like to do deals maybe from like 10 to 50 million.

We do a handful of those a year. And those deals, when we talk to the PE firms, a lot of them have kind of been on hold. They really, you've probably seen as stats, the M&A activity was down 80% in private equity and in venture since 2021. I think that must be changing. But the really interesting thing that's going on is we've really seen the mid-sized to large deals open up like crazy this year. We're closing more of the like two to five million dollar deals than we ever have. And then we're closing more of the five millions and above than we ever have. The actual place where we're having trouble is the sub-1 million-dollar deals.

Never seen that. Why do you think that is, Brad? I don't know. I do think that there could be something interesting going on in the sort of what is this market good for. And I just, anecdotally, amongst friends, colleagues, things like that, there is a constant talk about how everything in the world costs twice as much as it used to. I don't think our CPI and things like that really account for the real on the ground cost of some of these things. So I've actually wondered if you're like solopreneur type buyer has felt squeezed and feels like capital's

type because I think a lot of them were using things like their home, using things like their 401K through a robes, their home, different types of things like that to finance deals. And without that being available and with interest rates being so high, there's just not a lot of liquidity for the smaller player. That's what it feels like to me. I don't have any real proof except just sort of anecdotal experience. So if you're a small buyer, you're squeezed. If you're a big buyer, you don't want those deals. That's right. And the big buyers, I actually think that what's happened with the larger buyers from midsize and up is what has happened is they've sat around long enough to realize, hey, we may not be going back to those rates and they've just gotten comfortable

with we are in a higher interest rate environment. You've got to think, when you think about private equity, you think about venture, this is not a very old industry. You know, we're talking about an industry that when did it come on the scene, you know, within the last 50 years completely in the structure that we see. And so it's never really lived through high interest rates. The bulk of the activity was done in a very low historical interest rate environment. And so those deals where you do equity and you do debt, I think the debt side got squeezed in this and they've had to kind of recalibrate and figure out, well, how are we going to do deals if we don't have sort of what we would consider kind of free debt or cheap debt.

We don't have 8x leverage? Yep. Not available. Yep. And can't cover it. It's not available. And even if it were, you can't cover it,

which is not available. I also wonder if one of the reasons that smaller deals are more challenged is, you know, in AI generally, everybody is asking kind of, is this business durable? Is this business going to be here in 10 years? And I think kind of just that uncertainty has never been higher.

and just structurally, you know, the durability, the moat of a small business is less than that of a big business. So I wonder if, I mean, I know this is true for me. I just see small businesses as more fragile today than they were two or three years. They definitely are. And if you break that down a little more nuance, like we do online deals. So when you break that down even a little bit further, just think about some of the levers that are being challenged right now. So meta ads, maybe per se. performing better from a conversion standpoint than ever before, but at what cost?

You know, profits are kind of unnatural for businesses. And so I think we have a major profitability concern that kind of goes along with what you're saying about the AI concern. Fees have just gotten to be extremely expensive from the meta cost to on Amazon. Amazon has raised their fees every single year. We've just seen the sellers get squeezed on Amazon as well. So we're seeing it kind of across the board. Everything is higher priced in terms of the costs. And so in a world where profits are kind of unnatural for businesses,

I feel like it's more challenging out there. Yeah, I agree. I think it's one of the hardest times, or I should say one of the most K-shaped times for e-commerce, at least in my career. All the costs for advertising, the middleman extraction, Amazon, meta, Google, et cetera, is at all-time highs.

if you are a gorilla and you have great models for your LTV and you have plenty of EBITDA to absorb startup costs and customer acquisition, etc. I think people are killing it. I think a lot of small businesses are really struggling to absorb

all those middleman value catcher. We see it as well. I don't mean to focus too much on meta, but this is just interesting because what I see from sellers is that they're generally not very creative. So a lot of them use the same playbook over and over again. And so this idea of like, how I'm going to prospect on meta and then I'm going to retarget to it has been like that's been the model for a very long time.

One of the things we've done with the farming course that's been really interesting is we're posting videos to a Facebook page. And those videos have started to go viral on there. So we have one this month that got like 1.6 million views. Well, after it got 1.6 million views, I throw an ad behind it. I'm getting visits to the site for four cents a click. It's a game changer. So what I see out of a viral video first. You got to have a viral video,

but the other thing is, what I see out a lot of sellers, is they're not really testing a lot of things. They're using that playbook that's been used for a long time. I think we're going to have to see people be a lot more creative. Like, if you want to be the gorilla, you've got to go out and do the gorilla things. You've got to be testing all these different things.

And honestly, I think a lot of entrepreneurs fall into this trap of trying to play the playbook, I don't think the playbook works anymore. I think you've got to really try to think outside the box about how am I going to acquire customers. How are you going to segue that one to our deal? Well, let me pivot exactly to exactly what you guys are talking about, a charcutory plate business, which is totally not something dealing with interest rates. So this one I found because, well, frankly, I just wanted to say the word chakouterie a lot, which is amazing.

But it's a specialty food business that's in the District of Columbia. And Mills, it looks like they have a charcutory table as the picture here. Is that what you're seeing? Yes. I have some experience with this.

I have a funny story later that I don't think I've ever shared on the pot. Did you know how funny story? Is that your experience with this? No. It has to do with Harry and Davids. Ah, okay. I mean, far be it from me, to tell you not to tell a funny story. I mean, let's hear it. All right, this is a very,

I'll make this very quick. We used to do client appreciation gifts when I was doing financial planning work and saleside M&A work, and we would always order Harry and David's boxes. Well, we place an order for Christmas gifts to our clients, which was like, you know, a hundred people or something. And the owner of the firm looks at the AMX bill the next day, and there's like a multi, you know, it was like a hundred thousand dollar charge. It was supposed to be like 5,000 points or something. And somebody at Harry and David's accidentally fat-fingered the order and it, because the 3PL that they used, like nobody caught it. And instead of sending one box to our clients, it sent 67 boxes to each client. To everybody? Like a pallet of Harry and David?

No, every one of our clients. So it was the exact same box 67 times. So people are getting like 60 boxes on their porch of like pears and like charcutory things. And I had friends of friends of friends who were like, oh, I got some of your Harry and David's. It was like a $100,000 charge. And somebody lost their job. I think of Herring Davids that day. But every time I see a charcutory board like this or something that's very

stylistic, I think of that poor person at Harry Davis. That's hilarious. Man, well, the Mills, you have set the bar. You have, the most Harry and David you've ever sent me is 20 boxes. So please up and get out my game. All right. So this business, speaking of Lindy, is 101 years old. 101 years old.

They're asking $950,000. EBITA is $205,000 on $3.3 million in gross revenue. It is a specialty food business that's a rare opportunity. It represents the opportunity to acquire a century-old establishment with deep roots in the DMV metro area. So that's, what does DMV stand for? That's District Columbia? Yeah, that's Washington, D.C. area, right?

D.C., Maryland, Virginia. Like you know what I'm showing about? Yeah. Brad? It's correct. But what's that stand for? DMV. D.C., Maryland, something?

Virginia. Okay. I thought you knew it. I was like a greening. I was like a greenie. So it's D.C. Metro. All right. Founded in 1925, this American restaurant and specialty food operation has built an unparalleled reputation for quality food and drink for nearly 100 years of continuous operation. It generates 3.3 million annual revenue with 205,000 in EBDA, demonstrating the strength of an established customer base in operational efficiency, located in Washington, D.C., this well-established location benefits from limited competition in its specialty food niche. They offer premium baked goods, artisanal sharkouterie, Mills, perfect for you to provide to your roofing staff.

Specialty sandwiches, frozen food products, prepared foods, comprehensive food, and beverage selection. It's cultivated trust and confidence amongst consumers through decades of consistent quality and service excellence. Reputation built over nearly a century represents significant and tangible value that would be extremely difficult for competitors to replicate. Cellar financing is available with the owner being willing to hold a note providing flexibility for qualified buyers, and it demonstrates the seller's confidence in the business continued success. They have a number of furniture, fixtures and equipment, FF&E, $200,000, and they're holding $130,000 worth of inventory. The current owner is selling due to retirement after decades of successful operations.

Support will be provided as needed to ensure smooth transition and continued success. They have 22 employees, 15 of whom are full-time and 7 are part-time. It has an A plus location and it's a high income demographics. And the business is currently home-based. What? All right, you threw me for a loop on that one. Yeah. Yeah.

Do this person live in the restaurant? How many employees do they have? 22. 22, 15, full-time, seven part-time, and this is a home-based business. But it also says facilities A-plus location, high-income. demographics. All right. So this business, this business is for sale by owner. I googled the number, and it does, it does lead to a business's website. So I don't think we're outing them. It looks like, it looks like they are more of like a distributor of other people's food,

but the website does not look as old as you would anticipate. But like they'll sell pre-made things, because on their website they have like a reheating instruction thing like, hey, you know, come pick these things up or we'll send these things to you and here's how you can like, you know, reheat the Oysters Rockefeller that we sent you. But I think that they're not they're not prepping all this food. I think that they're an intermediary. So, I mean, that's very common with a lot of these kind of gift basket businesses. I mean, I would guess that's probably the case with even Harry and David's as well. Like they buy all of the components. And then you put. them together into a gift basket. Like they're not slicing in the meat. They're not growing the pears, like, et cetera. You just buy all that stuff and put it in a basket. I wonder if this is a business that, you know, at some point was a traditional brick-and-mortar

restaurant that, you know, was there for, you know, 90 years. In the last 10 years, they've, you know, repurposed to something like this. I've seen where people will do this, you know, like you're hosting an event and you don't want to build your own charcutory board, but you just like kind of order one from somebody local, and they'll box it all up and either drop it off or you go pick it up. I mean, Oh, cool. So they have a retail location. Yeah. It's in this converted, it looks like a converted home. So that's maybe where they got confused. It's home based. Okay. But there's, there's a Wagshall's Grand Bodega, which includes a bodega bar inside of Wagshall.

So this is like a converted home that is now basically like a bougie, charcutory restaurant-y type thing that has a happy hour. So this is a, I mean. Okay. It's a local business with a gift basket business attached, right? Site visit. I think we need a site visit. Well, so that is one of my first diligence questions is how much of this is me running a burger bar and how much of this is me selling gift baskets? Because those are very different businesses, you know, one of which.

which I'm maybe other people feel differently. I'd be more excited about the GIF Bastics business than running a bar in D.C. But maybe other people will feel differently because apparently this place is an institution. I'm on their website. And it says, legends who have been Waxhawls customers include presidents George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, and Dwight Azenhower, Supreme Justices, several.

Nancy Reagan, Alice Roosevelt, Chief Justice John Roberts, AG Robert Neweller, and so on and so forth. So I think this is a DC institution, which could be very attractive to some people. Well, that link that Brad sent, yeah, this, I mean, scroll down the page, it looks like a very curated, interesting place inside. Yeah. Man, it looked gorgeous. And the cool thing about this, because they put their phone number, it's not like we're outing them. Like, you can kind of look up, you look it all up, to your point.

Hey, everyone, it's Bill, and I want to talk to you about Quiet Light brokerage. I was so psyched when Quiet Light agreed to sponsor the podcast, because, I am a customer. I have used Quietlight to sell three businesses, and if I were selling an e-commerce or a SaaS business, I really would not consider anyone else. Like I said, I went back to them three times. I work with three different brokers at Quietlight. Had a great experience all three times. Even on one occasion, they found a buyer for a business that I just didn't know it was even going to be possible to sell. So they have pulled rabbits out of their hats several times for me. They've been in the e-commerce and SaaS business brokering game a very, very long time.

They really know what they're doing. They have great reach with both buyers and sellers. And the other thing I really love about Quietlight is all the brokers there are former operators. So you can't just show up and go, hey, I'm a lifetime business broker. I want to work at Quietlight. You have to be a former operator. So they all know what it's like to be in the operator chair. So if you go to Quietlight.com, they have free business valuation calls, which they'll do with you.

No obligation. just tell you what they think about your business, what they think it would be worth, and then what you might need to do to kind of get it ready for market. Those guys over there are great, great SOPs, great systems. I just felt like I was in really good hands all three times with Quietlight. So if you're interested in selling your business, especially in e-commerce or SaaS, hop on over to Quietlight.com, fill out their onboarding form for a free valuation call, and you can tell them Bill or Acquisitions Anonymous, Sent you.

So what I think is interesting is let's, I'm not from D.C. I'm not a D.C. insider. But let's assume that this is a D.C. institution with like a great brand. There is very much a business in taking institutions and turning them into CPG brands that scale via e-commerce, right? Kind of trading on that brand. It seems as though like they've kind of thought about it a little bit with the gift basket stuff. But there is a, you know, well-trodden path around kind of like making a line of salsas, making a line of so on and so, you know, honeies or figure out what your package goods thing is that you're known for and don't make it fresh deli meat because that doesn't work so good, you know, and trying to scale out on the reputation of kind of the DC legend wag shawls. So to me, that sort of seems like the growth lever here because it's been around since 1925, you're not going to grow business in the brick and mortar anymore that it's already been grown, I wouldn't think. The play here is to figure out how to trade on that and create expansion outside of the core line of business, I think, or go

multi-location, which is sort of the same thing. So, Brad, take a look at this line. 1998, I was pulling up their story. In NBC4 TV, the local NBC affiliate, awarded Wagshall's the contract to run their employee cafeteria. Wagshall's continues to provide this service today. You think they would mention this in the listing? I think it's funny that, you know, in the listing that when somebody takes a thing that is not positive and tries to spin it as a positive, like they've got less than 10% EBITDA margin and they say that demonstrates the strength of their established customer based and operational efficiency. I mean, this is a small business that is inherently very fragile that is not doing that. that much in terms of profitability. And I think they're, you know, it's a reasonable, multiple, like, I guess around,

they're asking $9.50, right? And they're doing $205. So it's, you know, roughly four times, a little bit less than four times. Is the real estate included, Michael? They have not mentioned it. It said it's home-based, unless the owner is living there. Yeah. And it even says facilities, a plus location, high-income demographic.

I'm not at that includes the real estate. Not at that price now. Yeah, not in Bethesda, Maryland. I don't know. I just, the other thing that jumps out of me is I like that this business is actually 100 years old. You know, you get a lot of those businesses that like try to legitimize themselves, and they're like, we have over, you know, 100 years of experience.

And it's like, well, you have 20 people who all have five years of experience. You know, like this business may actually have existed, right, based on the history on their website. They're actually 100 years old. Brad, what do you think? Well, I just said a few minutes ago, profits are unnatural. And this is kind of a case in point. It never ceases to amaze me how many businesses look just like this in the world. I mean, it has a lot of revenue for not a lot of profit.

Of course, it's providing employment for a bunch of people, 22. People make a living. I'm wondering, since it's self-listed, I'm wondering if possibly the owner is taking a salary that might not be included in those earnings. Sometimes you'll see that, especially on a self-listed kind of thing. I do think strategically they were pretty smart to say, hey, if we find the right kind of buyer, we're willing to carry a note. They weren't specific about it, which tells me they're probably willing to carry a

very large note. So this is one of those businesses that someone can sort of sign up to buy. They may not have to have a whole lot of capital to take on this never-ending job of running this place for the rest of your life, making nothing.

It's a succession plan question, right? Like, this person wants to retire. It's a DC institution. It's been around for 100 years. And they're looking for somebody to grab the baton, right? I'm sort of surprised. I mean, there's no son or daughter, maybe.

Maybe none of the employees is up for it. And they're just kind of trying to figure out what happens next at Wagshall. You know, seller comes to me and says, I got this business. I've never had anybody come to me and say I've got a business 100 years old. But I've had some people come to me and say, I've got a business that's 20 years old. And it's not super attractive for like a typical listing. First thing I would say to them, if you want this to be attractive, is offer a bunch of seller financing.

The problem, as we all know, is offering a bunch of seller financing bypasses one of the most important and inherent things in a sale, which is a transfer of risk. So William, the owner of this place, is willing to exchange some level of risk to someone else, but really maintain a lot of it in himself if he's willing to take on a giant

seller note. And so he's going to lose control, but he's also going to still maintain the risk he has today of owning the business, which is just not a great marriage, but in the right scenarios, that's what you have to do. I think it's astute that they're sort of like seeing that. I have a feeling that this person would take a very high level of seller financing. Now, if something Sometimes the advantage there, just as a quick note, the advantage there is he might get to call the shops. You're going to take a bunch of sub financing, but hey, I get to pick the interest rate. I get to dictate the years a little bit. They get a little bit of control over some of those factors.

But when the closing happens, they're not going to be celebrating. They're going to be worried. Or they may be relieved, Brad. I mean, I was talking with a founder a couple days ago about whether it was the right time to sell his business. And, you know, the financial transaction aside, the one thing that you can't have when you own the business is the ability to walk away. So even if the guy does not get a check at closing and it's just a seller note, he at least doesn't have to go to the store every day anymore. And he can retire, right? So at least there is that. So, y'all, there's also a weird dynamic here on their website. They have like six locations.

So they have the deli. They have like Washington, D.C., one, two. two, three, four locations in Washington, D.C. and I think two in Bethesda. And like when you Google them, I was trying to see like Google reviews. They, they have multiple, they even have multiple locations on Google, my business. So, and it may be that some of these are co-located. But I mean, surely this is not the revenue from all four locations. I mean, $200,000 Vibata across four at half locations or whatever this is. I mean, 50 grand a net per location. Like, that is wicked. There's some story behind this. It's got to be that like, you know,

it's brothers and one brother doesn't want to sell to the other or something and this is just one location or like it was an employee owned location that they're going to spin off or something. There's something here. Well, so if it's that Mills, I'm immediately out because I do not want to own one location of wagshalls and be totally exposed to the other people completely ruining the brand. Also, they probably wouldn't want me, you know, to be exposed to me totally ruin the brand either. Not that, you know, I'm some saint.

You know, who knows. I mean, and it's also DC. Like, you look at somebody the wrong way. You get canceled. So, like, you know, who knows? Like, you know, you don't, you serve someone the wrong cut of meat. You're in trouble. So I would, and also, like, you own one of the four wagshells.

You're just a vassal to the, you know, the broader wagshalls empire. No, thanks. Brad, I like having your perspective on here because we can, you know, poke holes and deals a lot and like say, hey, here's how we would have written the, you know, the teaser. But I do feel like, you know, you've even made this point already on this listing. But like, I think what this person has messed up is they should have addressed head on the fact that like we could very quickly realize that something doesn't add up. And when you're looking at a lot of deals and something doesn't add up, you just quickly pass. Like you put it in the too hard pile. like, I don't know, is it worth, you know, two hours worth of phone calls with the broker and the seller and stuff to figure it out?

Not, just toss it to the side. I wish they had, like, spent a little bit more time getting out in front of what looks like an apparent discrepancy or something like that. That is, there's probably a rational explanation. Totally agree. You know, as I'm, I mean, I will say this in D.C. There's no way that $3.3 million is the total revenue for all those locations. you wouldn't even be able to pay the rent, I don't think. It's not a very small operation in D.C. across that many places.

So now I'm over here wondering, okay, well, how much is this just the, since it says it's home base, is this just a mail order business? But it mentions a location, a restaurant. I'm so confused about what is actually going on here now. And I think our self-broker, William, not sure how to say his last name, you know, might have made some miscalculation. on it for sure. So, I mean, but that's that's the challenge of a, of a for sale by owner, right? This is the challenge and the opportunity of a for sale by owner. You know, like, let's say this is adjacent to your buy box, but you have a whole bunch of questions. It's possible that this is a way bigger,

better opportunity than William has framed it to be through his incompetent, not incompetence, experience incompetence as a business broker. I'm sure he's a good business owner, but he's not a business broker, right? And so he's probably scaring off a whole bunch of his buyers, but, you know, maybe you sign the NDA, you take a shot in the dark, and you go, holy cow, there's really something here. He just didn't frame it the right way. You know, you can find a lot of alpha there in the micro market with for sale by owner stuff. Yeah, for sure. All right, gang, coming up on 30 minutes for this podcast. What do you think? Mills, go first. I mean, I'm curious what the story actually is, and I might, I mean, at least you could call

the guy and you go straight to the source. I'd probably call him to figure this out. if I had a free half hour to do it. And this was, and you lived in D.C. And this was adjacent to your buybox. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I love charcuttery much like Michael, but I have to be out because this is a retail

business in a city. I don't live it. No, thanks. Brad, what do you think? I dream of being in the food business have for my entire life. have some family that's in the food business, restaurants, bars on my mother's side of the family, a big restaurateur, you know, kind of grouped there out of Kansas City. And this is just another reminder of why I probably will never take a jump into it,

because they have told me over and over again. Restaurant business is hard. It seems like the things you do are easier ways to make money than running a store or running a restaurant or a takeout. So it's sobering. Like I actually look at this and I'm like, man, I just, I can't believe the economics of what I'm looking at right there. Like, I think it's great that there are 22 people that are employed by this establishment.

Yeah. But man, the juice does not seem worth to squeeze. Like, I wouldn't even know how to begin to make the operation on improvements. I hate D.C. I would not want to live there. I'm totally out. Okay, then. That's definitive.

Yeah, I mean, there's easier ways to be. Choose easy games, kids. I think that's the TLDR on this one. All right, Bill, would you like to give our readership an ask? And also, before you do that, Brad, how can people get in touch with you? Yeah, Brad Whelan at Quietlight, Brad Whelan on Twitter. We have 15 advisors. If you don't like me, there's 14 others that you can talk to.

We do free valuations. And we try to help buyers because if we don't have buyers, we don't have a business. So we try to help buyers and sellers, but we generally represent sellers. Quietlyde.com. Amazing. And I will say I have used Quietlyte several times myself and they've always done an excellent job. I've never had the pleasure of working directly with Brad, but with several of his colleagues and Quiet Light is first class organization, especially if you were in digital businesses, you know, e-commerce and SaaS, where they really are the experts. So if you like this episode, if you love charcutory, I don't know that we've ever done charcutory before, but we have done other food businesses. we've done, I think I remember a potato salad manufacturing business. Macaroni potato salad, yeah.

So if you like this type of stuff, we like it too, and we have recorded 500 plus of these types of episodes breaking down real small businesses for sale. We talk about how you finance them, how you price them, you value them, you know, how you integrate them and transition ownership and everything in between. So go to our website, ACQUAnon.com. You find all the episodes categorized by industry. You can also get on our email list where we will email you, when new deals come out

in case you don't have time to listen to the audio on all of them. So with that, thank you for joining us for this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. We'll see you on the next one.