Laundromat News October 11, 2024

Jordan Berry [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Laundromat News. Tod

Jordan Berry [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Laundromat News. Today, I am your anchor, Jordan Barry, and I am bringing you all the latest and greatest around the laundromat industry, just to keep you up to date on what’s happening. And I’m going to start out in Texas, where a laundromat has been voted the most unusual restaurant. Harvey Washbangers, congratulations to you guys. Laundermat slash restaurant. Go get your laundry cleaned while you’re having a great meal. So Harvey Wash Bangers is the most unusual restaurant to eat at in Texas, officially. That’s official.

Jordan Berry [00:00:41]:
And it just kinda highlights, more and more laundromat owners that are getting innovative in their business models. We see, other laundromats doing similar things. There’s a Wall Street Journal article here, where, you know, Brian Holland has his laundry cafe in Philadelphia. There’s Perley’s wash tub in Brooklyn. They serve wine, coffee, burgers, stuff like that. All that, all that stuff is kinda going on. I’ve got, this is not really news, but I’ve got a consulting client who’s looking at a, a restaurant wash, and, laundromat in San Francisco. So more and more, these, these are starting to pop up where, you know, people are like, hey.

Jordan Berry [00:01:22]:
If I’m gonna be stuck doing a chore, let’s see if we can, you know, provide another service for them, to, you know, make some money, but also to, you know, serve customers. So, you know, just something to think about as you are building your laundromat empires over there. You know, maybe you wanna stick straight with laundromats, or maybe you wanna incorporate some other things going on into your business. Let’s head international right now. We’re heading out to South Korea, where Cleantopia is pioneering a new business model, where they’re raising investor capital, and they are they’re doing some unique things, over there where they’re treating these laundromats like a start up, and they’re launching a whole bunch of them. And they’re actually incentivizing people to, join their, almost like a franchise by giving huge discounts on machines up to half off of machines, and they’re supporting, you know, even helping with some rents and stuff like that. So Cleantopia is something to watch because like I I’ve mentioned before, on the news segment here, I’m always curious about what’s happening, what other countries, and what other businesses are doing or trying to do in this industry, because as we’ve seen over the last few years, this business is changing faster than ever before. And if we stay stagnant, we’re gonna get left behind.

Jordan Berry [00:02:47]:
So let’s pay attention to what people are doing, see what’s working, see what’s not doing, and, hey, maybe let’s try some stuff on our own. Alright. Back stateside, over here in the States, Alliance Laundry acquires yet another distributor, Bestway Laundry Solutions. They’re an on premise laundry or or OPL. On premise laundry distributor of UNIMAC machines, just picked up by Alliance recently, and, that is another distributor in in the collection that Alliance has been collecting. So, again, something to keep an eye on over there. Not sure all the implications yet, but, you know, something definitely is happening. And lastly, this one is for the kids.

Jordan Berry [00:03:33]:
I, you know, my kids will probably be not super excited, but I would be excited if I was a kid and probably you too. If you’re anything like me, there is a new game on Roblox. Yes, I said Roblox, called Laundry Rush, and you become the owner of a laundry business. So, listen, if you get tired from working your long days at your laundromat, serving your pickup and delivery or wash, dry, full customers, dealing with your self serve customers, never fear, you can go home after a long hard day of work of laundry to go play laundry rush and do laundry virtually online. So check out the Roblox game in laundry rush. And as always, all the links to all of these sources will be in our newsletter, so make sure you’re signed up for that. And that is gonna wrap up today’s Laundromat News Today. All the things going on.

Jordan Berry [00:04:29]:
I mean, probably not all the things, but a lot of the things going on here in the industry. If you have news, whether it be big or small, about your individual Laundromat or your laundry business, or a business that serves our industry, send that news or that press release over to news at laundromatresource.com, and we’ll make sure we get you in the next episode. Until next week, That is Laundromat News Today, and I am Jordan Barry. And once again, I am now realizing that I did not write one single joke for this one. Patrick, I have not forgotten you. You’ll get a joke. And somebody sent me an awesome ending line and I forgot to queue it up. And so I don’t remember it.

Jordan Berry [00:05:13]:
So next week, you’ll have an awesome outro, I guess. I don’t know. Until then, stay clean. I don’t know.

ay, I am your news anchor, Jordan Barry. And we are gonna bring you the latest and greatest of what’s happening around the laundromat industry. And we’re gonna start off with a press release from Laundrelux, who has come out with their toughest 200 g machine yet, now with proven touch technology. Laundrelux is North America’s exclusive distributor of Wascamat commercial laundry equipment, and it’s thrilled to announce the game changing expansion of its Wascamat vended washer product line. I’m gonna put the entire press release on the show notes page, so check out laundromat resource.com/news to check out the whole thing. But it features an innovative Clarus Vibe 7 inch color touchscreen control panel. I saw something at 35 different languages, 10 different built in wash cycles, a 180 plus custom programs.

Jordan Berry [00:01:00]:
I just love that these manufacturers are coming out with these products that are helping us serve our customers better. So check out the toughest 200g machine yet from Laundrelux to Wascamat, there and check out laundromat resource.com/news to go read the full press release and to get a link to check out, check it out further. And you can talk to a representative for Waskomack Commercial Laundry and Sales at info at info waskomat.com, or you can call 1800-645-2204. So I wanna get that information out there. Love, love, love this machine. It looks super sharp, and, can’t wait to try it out myself. I haven’t seen it yet in person, but I can’t wait to try it out myself. So check that out.

Jordan Berry [00:01:49]:
I wanna jump to our next story here. We’ve got a couple international stories, and the reason I’m bringing them up is because I like to see kinda what’s happening, around the world because some of that stuff is a sneak peek into our future here. So, listen. First of all, we’re gonna go over to Vietnam. In Vietnam, the laundromat business model is booming right now. You know, as I I think they’re in a in a point in time where small businesses are struggling, but laundromats seem to be booming there. And, I just think it’s, interesting to see that kind of around the world, the status of laundromats has been raising in the eyes of investors and and business owners. We’re certainly seeing that here in, the US, but also we’re seeing this in other places.

Jordan Berry [00:02:46]:
This initiative is being driven by Alliance Laundry Systems, the world’s biggest commercial laundry manufacturer, and they are driving this growth here in Vietnam. So let’s keep an eye over there, see what’s going on, see what’s happening, but it’s proving, laundromats are proving once again to be a just a compelling, business model. Alright, let’s stay in Asia, and we need to talk about Japan right now, because Japan also is seeing a boom in laundromats, and it’s this is really actually very interesting. They’re seeing a huge boom in self serve laundromats, and they’re seeing a decline, pretty massive decline in dry cleaners. And part of the reason for that, and it’s something that, you know, I don’t feel like we talk about enough, but it’s changes in in garments. Actually, there, Japan is is kinda leading the way with garments and specifically with suits that can be washed in in a regular washer, and their self serve laundromats are are growing because of the garments that are being worn over there that can be, that can be washed, you know, in a in a standard washer dryer. Actually, they have a lot of washer dryer combos even, so you can just chuck it all in one machine, get it washed, get it dried, good to go. It’s your suit.

Jordan Berry [00:04:03]:
You’re ready to you’re ready to hit the workforce there. So but I think this is very interesting because as we’re seeing a boom in laundromats in Japan, I’m I’m looking at a chart here. I’ll link to that in our newsletter. So if you’re not signed up for that, go sign up for our newsletter. But, I’m looking at a chart here that shows the growth from about 10,000, self serve laundromat locations in 1997 to, to today where they’re at about 25,000, self serve laundromats. And I’m looking at dry cleaners that had about 50,000 locations in 1997, and they’re down to about 22,000 today. So you can see that that has sort of begun to invert there. So, again, I think this is very interesting because of the types of garments that are being created and worn there, and so that’s definitely an interesting trend for us to be watching.

Jordan Berry [00:05:00]:
Listen. We can’t talk about the news today without talking about hurricane and hurricane relief. There are a number of laundromats on the East Coast there in the Eastern Seaboard that are offering free wash to try to help out the communities over there, and I’ll link to a few different articles of a couple of different Laundromats that are doing that. But definitely thoughts and prayers out there for everybody over there, who has been going through this hurricane and has suffered loss and devastation, and in particular, laundromat owners who have had their businesses affected over there. We’re thinking about you guys, and we’d love to support you guys, and we appreciate those of you who are supporting your communities by offering great service and some of you who are even offering great free service. I wanna give a particular shout out to Sarah Mackin, who’s out in Newberry, South Carolina, who, their business, all her and her husband’s business also was affected by Hurricane Helene. However, they were able to get power back on, and they’ve been able to give back by offering free laundry services for utility workers and first responders. As those guys are working around the clock to try to restore power and to help those in need.

Jordan Berry [00:06:18]:
So listen, I’ve been saying this for a long time, but laundromats are amazing investments. You can cash flow really great. They’re still a great business model. I get asked that all the time. Still a great business model both here in the US and as we’ve seen globally, already today. But but listen, aside from them being great businesses, we have opportunities to actually impact in positive ways our communities. And And so shout out to Sarah Mackin and all the other Laundromats out there that are serving their communities during a time of crisis. So I just want to acknowledge that.

Jordan Berry [00:06:51]:
And again, I’ll put a link to Sarah’s Laundry Southern Suds, which I love. That in case you want to go check them out and maybe head over their Facebook page and give them a great review, for their great work they’re doing over there for first responders and utility workers. Alright. We got to head back over to Asia for a second because they also are seeing a boom, but they’re seeing they’re seeing some a a new generation of laundry, servicing, going on over there. I mean, this this is wild, and and this is definitely something we need to take notice of. You definitely should, check out the newsletter that’s going out in order to read a little bit more about this. However, Laundry Go is booming over there, and they’re a mobile app based laundry service offering contactless pickup and delivery. And they’re using all kinds of innovative technology, including an AI scanner that they send laundry through, and it uses vision AI to automatically assess, autonomously assess the condition of the laundry and determine the appropriate washing method.

Jordan Berry [00:07:55]:
Like this is next level stuff we’ve got going on here. These are the kinds of things we need to be paying attention to. This is a whole new level of of laundry over here. So check out what they’re doing over there. You know, they’ve got they’ve got unmanned 24 hour dry cleaners. They’ve got all kinds of stuff happening over there. It’s really, really interesting, and these are the kinds of things that we need to be paying attention to as laundromat owners. Number 1, so that we can decide if there are ways to implement, these things or or something similar along these lines, but also just to see the evolution of our our industry and where we’re heading here.

Jordan Berry [00:08:31]:
Alright. So I’ll I’ll link to that in the newsletter. And, listen, the last thing we’ve got to touch on here, because this has been big news, it’s been all over my wife’s news feeds and stuff. But once again, Beyonce is back in the laundromat stripping down to her underwear in a Levi’s commercial. So shout out to the laundromat owner who owns the laundromat that Beyonce is stripping down in, I guess. But listen, not only not only are Laundromat’s a great business model. Not only do we have an opportunity to do great things in the community, but also maybe Beyonce might do her laundry in your Laundromat. So just further proof that this is a great business model.

Jordan Berry [00:09:14]:
Listen. This is the news today. There’s a lot going on in our industry, both here and abroad. But once again, we just wanna send our thoughts and prayers out to everybody affected by hurricane Helene. And if there are anything that we can do as a community, feel free to reach out. Or if you have news for next week’s episode, send me an email, news at laundromatresource.com, and we’ll get that in the news, and we’ll try to mobilize if anybody needs some assistance out there. Alright. Alright.

Jordan Berry [00:09:45]:
That is it for the news today. We will see I still don’t have a catchphrase, like one of those cheesy news catchphrases. I’m gonna work on that. And I still have not said any jokes, not a one for Patrick, and I I’m feeling like a failure right now. So, maybe next week, I’ll get my act together and and find a funny bone. That’s all for today. LaundryVant News today.