My ultimate goal is to potentially refinance down the line to settle everything.Any tips or insights would be greatly appreciated!

Any tips or paths on how to do this would be appreciated!  

I smell a refi in your pipeline a year or so from now, remember this isn't a home loan, so "two years of tax returns showing a profit" is NOT a hard/fast rule at all to get the best terms.

Yes physical cash, I'm also worried about putting the money in to others bank accounts and then them getting taxed on the money because it'll look like income even if there just transferring the money to the lender.

LLC is a legal entity that creates no tax benefits whatsoever and has no tax purpose.

Since you requested any book recommendations, I wanted to point you towards Tax Free Wealth by Tom Wheelwright. 

I'm filing my taxes using TurboTax and completed form 8824 for Fed purposes.

Instead I hedge my returns by saying to them, I don't want you to have to worry about more payments right now, but I will need a better sale price in exchange.I like to do these deals in a retirement account that's tax advantaged. 

Any tips I should know.

They have shown me tax returns for the business. - I asked for 3 months' bank statements and have about 20k liquid- 16 derogatory remarks on credit report- (I feel dumb for even asking considering this)Here is the kicker:- they own a restaurant and already said "How would you feel if there were occasional workers that stayed here?"