October 4, 2007

Laundromat to the stars
American Idol got its dirty laundry washed at Embassy
By Brian Early bearly@hippopress.com

Patti and Dave Fielding own Embassy Laundromat in Manchester. A few weeks ago, American Idol officials contacted the Fieldings to see if their wash, dry and fold service could accommodate the traveling show’s laundry, about 20 loads at 20 pounds apiece. The two agreed, and the nights when the American Idol traveling show was in town performing at the Verizon Wireless Arena, Patti and Dave worked after hours to clean the stars’ towels and clothing. It wasn’t their first brush with celebrity’s dirty laundry. The Globetrotters, traveling musicians and the skating girls of Disney on Ice have all washed their personal items at the laundromat.

Q: What kind of honor was it to wash American Idol’s clothes?
It’s exciting to get all the publicity, and we were excited to get that call. But to be honest with you, we have a really excellent side of the wash, dry and fold drop-off business, and it’s because we treat all our customers with top-notch professional service as if they were a celebrity.

How was the actual work of it?
It was just like we normally do, but because it was needed in a short time frame, we had to do it outside the realm of our hours. My husband and I were supposed to paint the house that weekend, but we put it off to do the laundry for American Idol. We started at about 8:30 at night. The first night we finished at midnight; the second night about 10 p.m. We had crews on standby on Saturday and Sunday at 6 a.m. in case we weren’t able to do it. The folding of the personal laundry is what really takes time. A lot of the names on the laundry bags had alias names because in the past their clothes have been stolen and sold on eBay. They had funky names, like Johnny Lighting.

Who else’s laundry have you done? The Globetrotters?
We haven’t done their laundry. They’ve actually come in and done their laundry. We had the princesses from the Disney on Ice doing their laundry this summer. My husband, who was working a shift that day ... called me up, “The princesses are here.” And I told him to get an autograph for our granddaughter, who was five years old, but he was too embarrassed to do that. He did mention that they had gorgeous legs.

How did you get into the laundry business?
My husband and I were working in the corporate world and we wanted to invest in something that we really didn’t need to be involved in, which is kind of funny because we are now very much involved with it. Once we wanted to grow it and be more involved in it, we slowly started getting more involved to grow the wash, dry and fold program, and getting more involved with customer service. We started a profit-sharing program with the employees. When we grow the wash, dry and fold, they get part of the profit in it. So that’s how it started. We were looking for a laundromat, car wash or a self-storage unit. Those were businesses that we could keep our corporate jobs and let them run by themselves. My husband was laid off first and then I got laid off, and both of us seemed to inch our way ... into the businesses.

What do you like about it?
The people. Our customers know us as Patti and Dave, which is not the case for a lot of laundromats. Many of them are unattended. Before we bought this place, the customers didn’t know who the owners were. We love the people, we love the employees. We have a great team of people right now. We have great customer service. We even have implemented our own secret shoppers.

You have you secret shoppers?
We do. I use my customers who I know would be unbiased filling out a form. They fill it out, date it and I know who was working at a particular time. It’s awesome feedback to find out what they are doing when I’m not around.

What happens inside the laundromat?
It’s like a bar without the alcohol.

What do you mean by that?
People come here almost the same time every week and gather with friends, kind of like Cheers. They gather with the same friends. Our worker Nancy just celebrated her two-year anniversary. If she’s not here one day, people are like, “Where’s Nancy? Is she sick?” It’s a family of people, and the customers that come in here, come in here on the same day, and they tell everybody and the employees what’s going on in their life. ... It’s literally as if they’re sitting around a bar telling the bartender what’s going on.

— Brian Early.