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Comment by yial | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know… I feel like slightly pivoting - tablecloth rental, rag rental, napkin rental to restaurants / labs / etc might still be profitable. Know of two businesses that use those services. (One a restaurant, one a lab ).

Or even just doing regular laundry…

Worst case turn the business into a laundromat in the right area…. (Though it might not be possible with that location).

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Sounds like investing another $400K worth of washers and dryers into a failing business. Is there much reason to think that running a dry cleaner is similar to running a laundromat? If not, why laundry instead of anything else?

Laundromats look like rented parking space to me: a way to utilize a space that would otherwise be lost, but won’t be anywhere near the revenue of actually having a full business/tenant in that spot.

In some areas laundromat are basically cost/revenue neutral and inly make sense as a service to the community and keeping the light on.

Laundromats usually only exist and survive in areas with lots of old and/or small apartments without enough place for an own washing machine.

It's not just a "service", it's vital for the community.

An apartment too small for a washing machine? It occupies less than a square metre of floor space; how small is your apartment?

Maybe businesses that provide an essential service to a community, like the logistics company from the article that many farmers depend on, should be donated the that community. Make it a coop of some sort, run not for profit, but for the needs of the community that uses it.

IIRC I've never used one, but I've also never owned a washing machine. By sheer luck both apartments I've been living in since 2006 have had a communal washer/dryer/drying room - but at least I would have the space to get my own washing machine here.

I do know of a few, but as someone said, I think they're in neighborhoods with old buildings where not everyone might have their own.

> Laundromats look like rented parking space to me [...] In some areas laundromat are basically cost/revenue neutral and inly make sense as a service to the community and keeping the light on.

Which is why laundromats / launderettes (as they're sometimes still called in the UK) are the stereotypical example of a type of business providing a very different kind of laundering service.

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