. >> staten island is densely popula populated.re's roughly 450,000 to 500,000 people here on this island. that's a pretty good amount of people who want to go see movies. jesse saw what the business used to do and said, let's not give up yet. >> reporter: they've been running things now for about seven years and they've been upgrading slowly as they can afford it. >> we had to really come in here and just do a major overhaul, cleaning up to begin with, you know, paint, clean the carpets up, clean the bathrooms up, everything spotless, you know, screens. then as we went along and the theater would provide us with some income, we'd just reinvest that back into the business. >> reporter: like many small business owners, they say upgreats are one of the keys to their success. >> give back. give back, put back into the business. that's the secret. >> reporter: but that's not all. the other key to their success is their own hard work and attention. >> we do everything, take tickets most of the time, i clean the theaters, work the candy