Established Dog Walking Service in San Rafael, Beachfront Distillery in Pacifica, and more

This batch skews toward businesses you can actually run: route-style services, light-asset local operators, and a handful of food concepts where the work is operational, not financial engineering. At the high end, there are a couple of “system + relationships” plays. At the low end, there are owner-operator bets where your time is the real equity.

This set leans toward concept-driven food businesses where brand, process, and regulatory footing matter more than pure foot traffic. The real risk is execution plus compliance — especially where alcohol or specialty production is involved. If you’re skimming, look for how transferable the systems are beyond the founder.

This is the core of this week’s deal flow. These businesses work when scheduling, staffing, and process discipline hold together. The real risk is labor-heavy execution — not demand. If you’re skimming, look for evidence the owner is no longer the bottleneck.

These listings are primarily about trust and continuity. The real risk is customer concentration and relationship transfer. If you’re skimming, look for how revenue survives the owner stepping back.

Turnkey laundromat, absentee owner (San Francisco): $525,000 asking on $115,000 cash flow/SDE. That’s roughly a 4.6x multiple, or about a 4.6-year pre-debt payback.

What that multiple is really saying: you’re paying for stability and delegation. Laundromats look passive on paper, but the real moat is reliable attendants, machine uptime, and disciplined capex planning. If the labor layer is thin or informal, that multiple collapses fast.

Three diligence questions I’d ask before getting excited:

This week’s listings are shouting about labor-heavy risk. Dog walking, mobile car cleaning, sign fabrication, and laundromats all look “simple,” but they break in the same place: people. The dog walking business is effectively a network of trusted walkers; lose a few and revenue wobbles. The mobile car cleaning service lives or dies on crew reliability and routing efficiency. Even the laundromat, nominally passive, depends on attendants showing up and equipment being serviced on time.

Buyer implication: before you model upside, model failure. Assume one key employee leaves, one crew underperforms, or hiring takes twice as long as planned. The question isn’t whether labor matters; it’s whether the business has systems that absorb labor shocks.

Practical takeaway: ask for a current org chart, wage rates, turnover history, and a written description of how new staff are recruited and trained. If that documentation doesn’t exist, you’re buying a job, not a system.

Have a business you’re thinking about selling in the Bay Area? Reply to this email and let’s talk. ScoutDesk features a small number of vetted listings each week, with an emphasis on clarity, realism, and buyer-ready detail.