By Tripp Vistica
People talk about small businesses of all kinds that have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it’s surprising that there has not been much talk about how it’s affected the dry-cleaning business, and the way the pandemic has had a domino effect on dry cleaners with so many people having to work from their home when the viral outbreak began.
The dry-cleaning business has been affected by other various businesses that are affected by COVID-19, because people are doing their job from home while wearing more comfortable clothing that can be washed in a regular washer and dryer. Many people are able to wear fewer clothing items that are dry-clean only, like suits and silk blouses, when they don’t have to.
Owner of Bensinger’s and Germantown Cleaners, Bill Mard, is considered one of the best at getting seemingly impossible stains out of clothes in the dry-cleaning business.
As the owner of many dry cleaners in Memphis, Mard does much more than run a business and oversee his employees. Mard is a hands-on type of owner, because he does much of the work himself. Not only does he drive from store to store picking up dirty clothes and dropping off the clean clothes, but he is also the one who runs the dry-cleaning machine.
However, what Mard does best is working on tough stains. He knows all the tricks to the trade and does everything he can to get rid of any type of stain. Many of Mard’s customers and employees believe that if he can’t get a stain out, then nothing can be done about it and the stain is permanent.
Mard explains the challenges the dry-cleaning business has continued to face during COVID-19 to stay in business, and the challenges he’s facing during the pandemic have to mostly with finances. Mard explains that do to the colossal drop off in the number of customers, he’s had to find ways to pay the rent, utilities and payroll without the money coming in that his business used to bring in. Mard has had to rely on federal and state support, as well as loans from banks to keep his business running throughout the pandemic.
Small businesses, like dry-cleaners, have been encouraged by the law to keep all their employees on payroll to be able to qualify for payroll protection, and to qualify for state and federal bailouts and stimulus packages. However, the elimination in the number of hours affects every employee differently depending on the employee’s financial situation, especially the employees that have to work and live paycheck to paycheck.
The Germantown Cleaners drop-store on Sanderlin Ave. is owned by Lou Ann Starks. Nevertheless, Mard does all the cleaning for the store and recognizes that the Sanderlin store earns him more money than any of the other stores that he owns.
Mard said the Sanderlin drop-store is a major reason he has been able to stay in business, and he contributes the money he earns from the drop-store to the store’s location in an extremely wealthy area of Memphis and the store’s regular customers.
Some of the store’s regular customers include UofM women’s basketball coach, Melissa McFerrin, Leigh Ann and Sean Tuohy, as well as their daughter Collins Smith and her husband, Cannon Smith, the youngest child of FedEx founder and CEO, Fred Smith.
University of Memphis (UofM) graduate, Kelsey Bowen, has worked at the Germantown Cleaners drop-store on Sanderlin Ave. since September of 2019, and is an employee that needs all the hours she can get to pay her bills and afford to live her life.
Bowen earned two degrees from the UofM in English and Journalism in the Spring of 2019 and started a part-time job at Germantown Cleaners while trying to start her career. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much time to find a job in her field before the pandemic hit only six months after she started working at the drop-store on Sanderlin.
“I went from easily working 50 plus hours a week to barely scraping 25 hours when the shutdown first happened,” Bowen said. “Our store hours were completely sliced, and then we had to divide them amongst us. It was really hard.”
The drop-store on Sanderlin have increased their hours since the beginning of the pandemic, but the employees still have to share hours continuing to make it tough for Bowen to make the money she needs for rent, bills, food and more.
To make things worse for Bowen, she had a major scare with COVID-19, and was scared that she might have to miss two weeks of work while being quarantined. She didn’t know how bad that might have affected her financially.
“On one hand, I want to come to work because I need to pay my bills,” Bowen said. “On the other hand, as cases continue to rise, I get scared to come to work.”
The Sanderlin store is starting to gain more customers back as this pandemic continues, and employees believe the customers will be back when COVID-19 is over. However, Bowen doesn’t believe that anything will go back to the way things were before the pandemic.
Bowen did mention a new service Germantown Cleaners could offer, if possible. The cleaners could start washing masks, since everyone already has to wear one all the time. It could be an extra service that might bring in a little extra income for the Sanderlin drop-store, and for the multiple dry-cleaners that are owned by Mard.
“The one thing I am waiting on is a mask cleaning service,” Bowen said. “Surely that has to be on its way, right? I am sure that would be comforting to the masses, and profitable for the cleaners.”
The one thing the pandemic has done is put things in perspective for the customers. They realize that we are all dealing with a worldwide viral outbreak and have become more patient than before the pandemic. The customers realize that it might take longer for their clothes to be cleaned and ready to be picked up due to COVID-19, and that their dry cleaning is not important in the grand scheme of things.
“I think one of the biggest differences I’ve seen in customers before and after the pandemic is the grace that has been extended,” Bowen said. “Our customers have been so helpful in working with us when things take a little longer to clean than they did before.”
Tripp Vistica 