DENVER — Dependable Cleaners and Shirt Laundry is a third-generation family business that is celebrating its 85th anniversary this year.
Recently, American Drycleaner caught up with Steven D. Toltz, company president, to learn more about the history of his family’s business and its eight decades of service to customers.
Q: Are you doing anything special to celebrate your anniversary this year?
A: In celebration of the 85th anniversary, we acquired a former Burger King in Evergreen, Colo., converting it to the company’s ninth drive-thru location.
Q: Can you tell readers a little about the history of the company and your family?
A: The company started in 1930 when my grandfather, Jack Bugdanowitz, had the idea of delivering his father’s tailoring to the neighborhood on his bicycle. He suggested that they clean the clothes as well as tailor them, thus the beginning of Dependable Cleaners.
He later married Esther, who came aboard, and together they started what has become a 24-store chain. Esther was meticulous about quality, insisting that every customer’s garment be cleaned and pressed to perfection.
As she traveled from store to store, she often inspected clothes with a lit cigarette in her mouth and a long ash dangling.
Q: When did the next generation of the family join the business?
A: In 1950, my father, Warren Toltz, married Esther and Jack’s daughter Ruth and shortly thereafter joined the business. Warren’s background was in marketing, and he quickly began to service mark the company’s logo.
He set the present standard that we spend 2% of sales on advertising. At that time, the company marketed primarily with coupons, as did most cleaners during that era.
Dependable was the first cleaners in the nation to do a coat drive called Coats For Colorado, and this will be our 35th year. Through our participation in the Roundtable of Laundries and Dry Cleaners, the idea spread and now coat drives are common place.
I’m especially proud of my father, who founded the program which has collected and distributed over 2 million coats over those years. Last year alone, we distributed over 100,000 coats to those in need.”
Q: Tell us about your generation and current milestones for the company.
A: As was the custom at our dinner table, Ruth and Warren always talked business. Their four children absorbed this knowledge. I gravitated toward the business. After graduating from college in 1980, I opened the company’s first drive-thru location in Cherry Creek, an affluent Denver neighborhood.
The store today is the flagship location for Dependable. My paternal grandfather acquired real estate, and I married the concept. We began to acquire all future locations.
In 1986, I went to law school and practiced for a number of years until my father’s health necessitated a return to the business. Armed with 10 years experience representing environmental defendants, I began to convert the company from perchloroethylene to hydrocarbon. Today, the company is on its third generation of hydrocarbon machines, augmented by wet cleaning.
In 2005, the company resurrected home pickup and delivery, a concept first introduced by my grandfather. It remains the fastest growing segment of Dependable’s business.
Q: Anything else new at your company?
A: Wash-and-fold laundry has become Dependable’s latest attempt to get GenXers in the door. It remains to be seen whether or not this will work.
We look toward to introducing more drive-thru locations. And as we always say, we will continue to take good care of you and your clothes.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Dave Davis at [email protected].