Carrying On…

By Bob Nieman | Jun 29, 2009

Gabi Felter certainly never thought she would be a coin laundry owner. But she’s owned Southside Laundry in Tiffin, Ohio, since 1993.

Then again, the German immigrant who grew up in Rochester, N.Y., probably never imagined she would be a farmer’s wife either. But she lived with her husband, Greg, on his family’s farm for 28 years.

Felter attended Heidelberg College in Tiffin, which is where she first met Greg, a local farmer, in 1973. Upon her graduation in 1975, the two got married.

“We joined the family farm, which had been in existence since the 1930s,” explained Felter, who was born in Germany and came to the United States with her parents when she was still a girl. “He worked the 1,000-acre farm with his father and his uncle.

“I knew nothing about farming,” she added. “But, at the time, I thought it was pretty cool. I didn’t realize what kind of hard work it was.”

In the early 1990s, Greg’s father became ill.

“In order for the farm to be successful, it had to be a three-person operation,” Felter said. “One or two people couldn’t really do it, so it started to become more challenging after his father became ill and wasn’t able to participate.”

And, as time went on, Greg’s uncle began to pursue other business interests, leaving the farm for Greg to run.

“Eventually, it was Greg trying to run the whole thing,” Felter recalled. “They ended up taking part in what was called the conservation reserve program, where you set aside your land for 10 years to let it rejuvenate and, basically, you get paid for not farming. We were still getting an income from the farm, but Greg wasn’t physically working the farm, so he was looking for something else to get into. And that’s where the laundromat comes in.

“Having always been self-employed, he knew he didn’t want to work for somebody else. We also had rental properties over the years. We would flip houses. We were entrepreneurial.”

The Felters were seeking a business venture that would give them some flexibility over their work schedules, and the coin laundry business seemed perfect.

“We wanted a business that was not that labor-intensive, at least as far as having to be there 24/7,” Felter said. “Plus, it’s a cash business, and that part is fantastic.

“People are always going to have to do their laundry,” she reasoned. “And the possibilities with this business are endless. I’m always thinking about things we can do differently. It’s a very current business, and it will continue to be that way. In these economic times, perhaps customers are waiting a little longer to do their laundry, but they’re still going to have to come in and do it.”

Getting into the Laundry Business

The Felters closed on Southside Laundry, their one and only self-service laundry business, in December 1993. The 2,300-square-foot store had been in existence since the 1960s. However, the owner had died suddenly, leaving his wife to run the business.

“Basically, the owners has been using it just to get the income out of it, and it was falling apart,” Felter said. “His wife was stuck with a real mess, and she wanted out real fast. That’s where we came into play. So we bought a dark, rundown building.”

Felter said she’ll never forget her first visit to their new business.

“It was December, and it was probably the coldest winter here that I can remember,” she explained. “It was 25 degrees below zero, and we walked into this laundromat – it’s dark and sad looking… and all the way in the back corner was this little lady sitting there; that was our attendant. She was wearing a snowsuit, and she was already in her 80s – just this little thing with no meat on her bones. Her name is Virginia, and she came with the place. In fact, she’s still living. She’s 97 now, and I still visit her at the nursing home where she lives.”

At that point, the Felters knew they had some work on their hands.

The interior décor consisted mainly of dark paneling, which the Felters painted white, to brighten up the store. They also replaced a majority of the laundry’s old toploaders with new, more energy-efficient frontloading models.

An old indoor/outdoor type of carpeting that covered the floors was pulled up and replaced with brand new tile. In addition, new doors and windows were installed, and the roof, which was leaking, was repaired.

Lastly, a large pool table, which apparently was getting more action than the washers and dryers, was removed – completing the transformation of Southside Laundry from run-down teen hangout to first-class self-service laundry.

“It was just a lot of painting and sprucing up,” said Felter, who owns the building and the property. “It was a work in progress. We stayed open through the whole thing, which took a good three months.

“Then, about two years after that, we realized there was a well on the property, so we had that re-dug,” explained Felter, who had been using solely city water for those first two years. “That really helped us in regard to our water costs.

“This laundry business is always an ongoing process. It has to be, and it should be.”

Planning for the Present

The couple shared in that process completely for 10 years. Then, in 2003, their entire world changed.

“It was Labor Day weekend,” Felter remembered clearly. “Greg had been having some symptoms for over a year. His one foot would drag. He was stumbling, falling… having muscle spasms. So, eventually, we ended up with a neurologist who nailed the diagnosis – Greg had Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

“That changed our life. Now, instead of planning for our future, it ended right there. We had to plan for the present. How are we going to do this from now until it got really bad?”

Greg Felter passed away on June 23, 2007.

“The first year I took over on my own, I was kind of just managing it – managing the people and the store,” said Gabi, who employs four part-time attendants. “Now, this year, I’ve gotten more into the business end of it. I’m kind of growing more into it.”

As she eventually grew into the business, one of the first changes she made at Southside Laundry was to increase the vend prices.

“I always thought Greg was too low on the pricing, so I jacked it up twice,” she said. “The customers may complain a little bit, but they’re still going to come back. They like the place. We were way too low. I got some new machines, and I kept prices low for about three months, and then I raised everything after that.”

Another area of growth for the laundry has been in its drop-off business.

“That’s a jackpot right now,” Felter boasted. “And people love the ironing service we provide. Each town has a section that’s a little wealthier than others, and we happen to be located on the wealthy side. Those wives love bringing their husbands’ shirts in to be ironed.”

She adjusted the prices on this service as well: “I didn’t want to raise prices on my walk-in customers again, because they’re struggling to begin with, so I increased the luxury part of my business, which is the drop-off service. I raised the price, and I saw such an increase. It didn’t deter anyone from coming back. After all, they can afford it or else they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Felter added that she’s also been tinkering with the notion of possibly installing a drive-through window for her growing wash-dry-fold business. What’s more, she’s exploring the idea of seeking out some commercial accounts as well; Southside Laundry currently launders all of the sports uniforms for the school located across the street from the store.

Felter – whose customer base includes students from Heidelberg College, area renters and local homeowners who prefer Southside’s larger washers and dryers – keeps customer traffic flowing through Southside Laundry with a number of advertising and marketing programs, from newspaper ads to local radio spots.

“Word of mouth is always best, but advertising is still important,” acknowledged Felter, whose store is open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday. “I just sent out a direct-mail piece to customers that I haven’t heard from in a while, and I want to do some door hangers, too. We’re in a small town, so a lot of my promotion is through the sponsorship of local events and programs.”

For instance, in January, Felter began an outreach program with a local developmental center for children and young adults.

“This center takes them out into the community for different types of occupational therapy,” she explained. “For example, they will go to the local convent and wash the dishes. Of course, the laundromat is a perfect opportunity for them to work on many different skills. They will come in for a couple of hours four days a week. They all have different capabilities; some can do more than others. It has worked out really well.

“As a local business owner, I feel that we need to support our own,” she added. “Last year, we ran a program with the local convent. They grow their own organic vegetables there, and we put up a stand in the laundromat one day a week where they could sell them.”

It has been the vegetable stands and local outreach programs that have made Southside Laundry somewhat of a social hub of the community.

“We do have almost a social club there,” Felter said. “This morning, I walked in, and there were the regulars – a nun, the man who lives across the street and helps out at the laundry, and a school teacher. I’ve always thought that a coin laundry would make a great location for sitcom, kind of like ‘Cheers.’ You get all of these different characters in there, and they have to be there – people who wouldn’t normally mix are mixing. It’s fun to watch people from totally different backgrounds start talking to each other. I think that’s cool.”

And Felter, whose strength is clearly her people skills, fits right into that scenario.

“I’m a good customer service person,” she admitted. “I was a social worker, and I’ve been a supervisor before. In fact, I used to supervise 32 women, which was a nightmare. Now, I’ve only got four.

“Plus, I’m pretty intuitive,” she added. “I really like the visionary part of it. I love trying to come up with new ideas. I guess I take after my father – he was a very successful businessman on his own, always thinking outside the box. He became a barber and hair stylist and, from there, he got into the beauty supply business, where he built a multi-million dollar company.

“In any industry, you have to stay involved. I don’t think you can show up once a week at your coin laundry to collect quarters and walk away. For something like this, hands on is definitely the way to go.”