Butcher shops
The shop is profitable. The case is twenty years old.
Sec. 01 — The capital problems
What actually makes this business hard to finance.
The display case is the storefront
A refrigerated case is the single most visible asset in the building and the one customers judge you on before they judge the meat. Replacing a twelve-foot service case runs $28,000 to $70,000 depending on refrigeration, and it is nearly impossible to do out of operating cash in a business turning $900,000 a year.
Whole-animal buying requires cash you do not have on hand
Buying a whole steer or half a dozen hogs from a local producer means paying for the animal weeks before the last of it sells. Shops that want to move to whole-animal or local sourcing frequently find the model works on paper and stalls on working capital.
Custom cutting is seasonal and capital-hungry at exactly the wrong time
Deer season, hog harvests and freezer-beef orders all land in a compressed window. You need cooler space and labour in October that you do not need in April, and the revenue arrives after the cost.
Landlords and buildouts
Most shops lease. Drains, floors, three-phase power and cooler installation are permanent improvements to someone else’s building, which makes both the financing and the decision harder than it looks.
Succession is a financing event
Third-generation shops change hands inside families, and the sibling staying in usually has to buy the sibling leaving out. That is a real transaction with a real number, and it rarely has a plan attached until the year it happens.
Sec. 02 — Which products fit
And why they fit here specifically.
Equipment financing
Cases, saws, grinders and slicers are serial-numbered, recoverable assets — which is exactly what prices well.
Cold storage financing
Walk-in replacement is the most common single project a shop finances, and it is rarely just the box.
Line of credit
Covers whole-animal purchases and the autumn custom-cutting build without a permanent note.
SBA loans
The right home for a partner buyout, a second location, or buying the building you have leased for a decade.
Term loans
A full remodel with firm bids, where speed matters more than the last two points of rate.
Sec. 03 — Typical deal sizes
What these projects actually cost.
- Single case or saw replacement
- $18,000 – $70,000
- Walk-in cooler and refrigeration package
- $60,000 – $220,000
- Full shop remodel
- $150,000 – $500,000
- Second location buildout
- $200,000 – $700,000
- Partner or family buyout
- $250,000 – $2,000,000
Sec. 04 — Cash cycle
Seasonality, and when the money moves.
- Retail collection is immediate — cash and card at the counter — so there is no receivables gap unless you also sell wholesale.
- Supplier terms typically run net 7 to net 30, which means you are usually paid before you pay. That is an unusually good position and it is worth protecting.
- Q4 is the strongest quarter in most shops: holiday roasts, standing rib, hams and gift boxes. January and February are the softest.
- Custom and wild-game processing concentrates September through December in most states, which is also when cooler space is tightest.
- Grilling season runs late April through Labor Day and rewards shops that built inventory and staffing before it started, not during.
Sec. 05 — Two examples
What these files look like.
$164,000
Case and cooler replaced together
A shop running a failing 1990s service case and an original walk-in financed both in one package rather than replacing the case and discovering the refrigeration could not support it. Bundling avoided a second application four months later at a worse rate.
Illustrative example, not a named client.
$610,000
Buying out a retiring brother
Two siblings inherited a shop; one wanted out. An SBA 7(a) funded the buyout at a payment the shop could carry, structured so the exiting sibling was paid at closing rather than on a seller note that would have kept them entangled for seven years.
Illustrative example, not a named client.
Sec. 06 — Get started