SERIES: Laundromat Spin

To the average person, doing laundry is something to dread. For Jeff Moak of Super Clean Laundromat, it’s a reason to get out of bed with a smile on his face every day. He’s one of the people who make the laundromat side of the industry interesting and enjoyable just through his enthusiasm.

Getting started

“My Grandfather was in the industry originally,” he said. “He had a store in Pickering, ON and then two in Ajax.

“When I was 9 years old, I would help carry bags of quarters to the bank with him and he’d joke I was the “muscle” keeping him safe. When I was in high school, I would look after his store when he went on vacation. I’d open it in the morning, go to school, check on it at lunchtime, and again after school. I’d go back in the evenings and clean and close up the store.

“I bought the last store he had from him in 2003, and that is our current Ajax location.”

The call of laundry

“I always had an interest in the business,” Jeff said. “I’ve had other businesses over the years as well, but it seems laundry is in my blood. I’ve always been mechanically inclined. I had a contracting business, and we built stores for other people. I love the industry. Anyone who knows me, or talks with me, knows I can’t stop talking about laundromats.”

Moak’s knowledge and enthusiasm brought him to the attention of Laundrylux, and he now consults for them in the Canadian market. “It just means I can talk about laundromats even more now,” he joked.

Spreading out

Jeff and his wife have two locations over 120 km apart across a busy metro area. While this could cause issues for some owners, Jeff relishes every minute of it.

“When I bought my grandfather’s store in Ajax, I also bought his house, which was four doors down. That meant I could walk to the store all the time.

“When I sold my other businesses, I started looking for another laundromat. In 2017, I found one in Cambridge, ON I really liked. I was in the process of moving to Toronto with my then girl friend (now wife) Sangeeta, and I figured the second store would be half way between the first one and Sangeeta.

“Depending on the time of day, my usual drive is about an hour. I go to both stores once or twice a week depending on what I need to do and I’ve always loved driving, so it’s not been an issue for me. We are currently looking to build more stores in Ontario but we’re also in talks to open a new store in Edmonton. My wife is from there originally, we are their often visiting her family. It’s an under-served market that we want to get into,” he said.

Challenges

It wouldn’t be business without challenges. Moak’s attitude is a big part of how he gets through them. That and his innate sense of curiosity and wanting to utilize the latest technologies.

“In the beginning, I had to learn to balance how much I was in the store, and oversee all the manual processes we had in place. I was unlocking doors in the morning, locking doors at night. We weren’t attended so I was doing it all. On weekends, we’d stay opened longer because I’d be out late with friends and didn’t get in to lock up earlier.

“As we progressed, we invested in a system to be sure the doors unlocked and locked automatically, simple things like that. Ours are hybrid attended/not attended stores, so the door stay open earlier and later when the place is unattended than when we have staff in the store.

“Adding staff also helped. There seems to be an aversion to hiring staff in the industry among owners. But having staff working in stores and paying wages has meant that I have more time to work on the business itself, not just handle all the details. It has also allowed us to expand our offerings like Wash & Fold and Pickup & Delivery. The stores are cleaner with more people to handle it, and customers like having someone they can ask for help.”

One final step was for Sangeeta to become very involved in the business alongside Jeff. “That’s really allowed me to feel less overwhelmed each day,” he said.

A little help goes a long way

Service companies like laundromats don’t operate in a vacuum. Allied Trades partners that step up make the business run smoothly and provide insight and technology necessary for success.

“I became a full time owner in 2003. After I retooled our second store, the next stage in my journey was to start getting involved with distribution and consulting with other store owners. I like to take the approach that since I’m in the industry, I have operational knowledge, I wanted to represent the brands I already use, since I know they work.

“For me, that’s brands like Electrolux for all of our washers and dryers. Our Point-of-Sale system is from Clean Cloud. I’ve done some development work with them, and originally signed up with them in 2016. We also use Tangerpay, for customers making payments using their phones.

A mix of services

A glance at the Super Clean Laundromat website shows that Jeff and his team don’t just stand around waiting for someone to come use the washers and dryers. They have an array of services that contribute to the success of their bottom line.

“I’ve always had vended self-serve (don’t like the term coin any more) stores. But I recognize not everyone wants to do their own laundry. We’ve been doing Wash & Fold and Pickup & Delivery since 2013. It’s a premium service customers are willing to pay for. These two make up about 30% of our store revenue now.”

He also has a tailor at one location for repairs and adjustments, commercial accounts with customers like doctors’ offices or other facilities, and takes in dry cleaning – making him a one-stop convenience for customers (or they can have it all picked up and delivered back to them.)

“The only way to keep everything going is systems, policies and procedures,” he said. Clean Cloud and Tangerpay both track customer orders. We use Tangerpay with both our self serve customers and for our Wash & Fold service. It’s integrated with Clean Cloud, so we don’t need to give staff money to start machines. I’m also constantly updating store Standard Operating Procedures and fine tuning our procedures to try and enhance the customer experience.

“Between both stores, we have 12 employees. Each store has an assistant manager, and we have an operations manager now, as well, that oversees both stores. We have a single delivery driver currently but we will be launching the Pick Up & Delivery service in Waterloo Region, Hamilton and Guelph soon, so we’ll be adding another driver for that. We have 5 employees in Cambridge and 7 in Ajax.

“We send our dry cleaning out to three places: in Cambridge, it goes to Newtex, in Ajax it goes to Betty Brite and our rugs and leathers go to Suedemaster.”

He just loves it

You can’t talk to Jeff and leave the conversation with anything except an impression of his bubbling-over enthusiasm for what he does.

“I can’t really explain what it is I like about the business,” he said. “I’ve been in it since I was a child; it’s what I know.

“I think what gets me up every morning is that the industry is starting to evolve. It’s starting to innovate again, and that gets me excited. Now there’s AI, touch screens on equipment, and payment systems other than coin. There is a lot coming out to drive the business forward.”

Positioned for the future

The overall fabricare industry has suffered in the last eight years or so. Though laundromats weathered the storm of COVID fairly well with the emphasis on getting everything clean and germ—free, there are still challenges inherent in it. Of course, Jeff has an opinion on that.

“I think the biggest problem in the Canadian laundromat industry right now is that the industry has been slow to modernize,” he said. “There are still a lot of stores under-delivering a good customer experience. They’re still using an antiquated way of thinking that customers need to use the store, not choose to use it. The industry has been slow to upgrade equipment, slow to add payment options other than coin. I’ve also seen a trend toward stores removing their staff, and previously full-service stores going unattended.

“The industry has a lot of eyes on it. New investors are overpaying for stores and then don’t have the money to upgrade the store once they take over. They also watch TikTok videos of “influencers” emptying quarters out of machines and describing it as passive income [as if there’s no work involved except going to the bank]. We need to change the narrative so new investors have a better idea of what the business is.

“At Super Clean, we have full service options like Wash & Fold, new equipment, and alternative payment systems. We’re getting ready to refresh both of our stores, and also build new stores. We’re positioning ourselves to give the customer more.”

Getting the word out

Jeff admits that he’s behind on where he needs to be in marketing Super Clean Laundromat.

“I’ve been really bad with our marketing. We have the website, and I use our Google Business Listing–which is a really important free tool for store owners. I use Instagram and a little bit of Facebook, but this is an area we need to do better in. Right now, customers are finding us–but we’re not doing enough to find them.”

We’re pretty sure that’s going to be on his next to-do list, especially with new stores on the horizon.

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