CHICAGO — R.R. Street & Co. has spent 150 years surviving wars, economic crises and industry upheaval by staying true to a core set of values. As the company marks that milestone, its leaders say two of those values stand out as particularly defining: a belief that an educated industry is a stronger one, and a responsibility to the people and community that have made the company what it is.

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the company’s beginnings as it pivoted from a catalog business to one centered on dry cleaning. Today, we’ll conclude by examining how educating its customers has become a focus for the company, and what it sees coming in the future.

One of the threads running through Street’s history is a commitment to industry education.

The company was a pioneer in the concept of allied-trade scholarship support for Drycleaning & Laundry Institute (DLI) training programs, established a Korean Language Program to serve the growing Korean-American drycleaning community, and launched Street’s Academy to deliver both live seminars and streaming educational content. In the 1980s, Street’s also endowed a research professorship at Northwestern University Medical School that remains active today.

Vos says the reasoning behind that commitment has never really changed. 

“Street’s believes that a stronger, better-educated industry benefits everyone,” she says. “It’s never been for us just about selling products. The more knowledgeable dry cleaners and laundries can be, the more profitable they’re going to be, and the better prepared they’re going to be for the industry.”

“We want our customers to succeed,” Mayberry says. “And we have decades of proof that the more a business operator understands their business, on both the technical and business sides, the more likely they are to succeed.”

Dry cleaning also demands more than most people outside the industry realize. 

“Dry cleaning is an art and a science,” Mayberry says. “It’s not just a good product, but a product that works. It’s knowing the techniques for removing a stain. It’s understanding the temperature, how long you run something. You can’t just push a button and have it happen. There’s a lot that still requires training and education.”

Not many companies survive long enough to enjoy a 150th anniversary, and Mayberry and Vos say their company understands the significance of this milestone. 

“It’s like having a great, magnificent old oak tree on your property,” Mayberry says. “It’s a blessing. It provides all sorts of enjoyment. It’s also a responsibility.”

That responsibility carries weight. “You not only have a legacy and a history of all these people’s hard work and fears and efforts,” he says, “but it’s the responsibility to keep it going for the future. You want to keep that tree growing.”

The company’s product line is broad for its size today. “We are probably one of the only companies that, for dry cleaning, we sell all elements of process supplies,” Vos says, “including drycleaning solvent, filter cartridges, (and) chemical products used for dry cleaning, wet cleaning, stain removal, laundry, housekeeping, warewash and boiler treatment. We provide all those things.”

Street’s employs approximately 70 people today — all of them, Vos notes, are South Side Chicago residents. Some have been with the company for their entire careers, spanning more than 40 years. It’s a detail she wants operators to keep in mind.

“Because we’ve been around a long time and we sell a lot of products, customers think we must be this huge company,” Vos says. “But in the end, we’re a small business, and we face the same day-to-day challenges that a lot of our customers and distributors face. When our customers hurt, we hurt.”

Vos says the company’s purpose hasn’t shifted much from the days Robert Street first set up shop in Chicago. 

“We have always fought for the industry,” she says. “That has been an investment that we have made at multiple levels. We’ve always wanted to have the well-being of the industry at heart.”                       

For Part 1 of this series, click HERE.