Car Wash Investment in New England

[Douglas MacKenzie]

Thank you in advance for any and all advice. I googled "is a car wash a good investment" and found a whole bunch of threads from this site that provided a lot of good insight. None quite match up with my situation which is why I wanted to post. I have no investment experience, other than owning stock in various companies. I have a good friend who's son has worked for 13 years installing and maintaining car washes. He has been saving for a bit to come up with the necessary cash for a down payment on an SBA or other type of loan. He's still about 150K off though, and is looking for a partner. He'd like to purchase an existing 2-4 bay automatic car wash, or buy some land and build a new one.

He's showed me numbers on several he is looking at, or has looked at, and if things went well, we could each be profiting 100-150K  per year with an initial investment of around 150K each. I would have never thought about getting into buying a car wash, but what attracts me to this situation is that he really knows the ins and outs of mechanically making sure these things run well, and he also can walk in and tell immediately whether the equipment is in good shape/ has been maintainted. He seems to have done his research quite well on all of this. 

Any red flags I should be aware of? Does this sound like a good deal? I'm assuming my first step would be to go to a bank with him and discuss the logistics/ feasability of getting a loan correct? Please remember, I have never done anything like this before, so try to keep in mind when replying that I may not understand investing jargon etc...