BUFFALO GROVE, Ill. — Are you personally cool?
Employees at newly opened Tide Dry Cleaners here in Chicago’s northwest suburbs certainly are.
“We installed a spot cooling system,” says Karl Russ, one of four co-owners of the store. “There are 24 of these flexible vents in the store and they allow personal cooling.”
The silver-colored, tube-like vents are arranged strategically in the rafters where employees can easily reach up and direct them wherever they need them, to stay cool. I’m calling them “cool tubes.”
And that’s not all.
“The team we have here,” says General Manager Brian Russ, Karl’s son and one of the other co-owners, “is better than we could have imagined. We’re like a family.”
Kevin Canfield and Steve Stair, the other co-owners, were not present during the tour.
With family ties to the Chicago area, franchisee Karl Russ jumped at the opportunity to bring Tide Dry Cleaners’ commitment to quality and customer service to Buffalo Grove. The store’s grand opening was at the end of August and “512 customers came out,” notes Brian Russ.
Father and son greet me outside for my private plant tour on a sunny, late-summer Friday.
A customer pulls up in the drive-thru in an SUV. A smiling Tide greeter comes out to receive the clothes, and away the car goes.
“Ideally, drop-off is in 30 seconds,” notes Brian Russ. “Pickup should be 90 seconds.”
We step inside and right away I’m aware of the cool, airy, fresh smell. There’s an open-floor-plan feel to the store. Sight lines go back to the drycleaning machines, spotting board, and on through to the back.
“That’s all on purpose,” says Russ. “Customers like info; they like to see how things work. They always talk to me about the spotting we do, and they like to watch how it works. It’s very engaging — they love it and we love it.”
The employees brim with confidence, and the store is noticeably clean, bright.
Karl Russ smiles and says, “Trust is important. The Tide brand is well-known. Brian and I work to never break that trust with our valued customers; they are like family to us.”
“One of our customers,” Brian Russ relates, “is Russian-speaking and she was delighted to learn that we have an employee who can talk to her in Russian. Now she comes in all the time and even brought us pizza one time and also another time a cake.”
Head presser Victor Bravo is working on a shirt as we move from the polite, hard-working counter staff up front, past the 60- and 80-pound drycleaning machines, back to the pressing station near the plant’s two wetcleaning machines. It doesn’t feel hot or cramped here.
Bravo is directing a cooling vent to where he works on a shirt. He’s fast, efficient, and smiles as he attends to details. Near him, a double-buck machine operates quietly behind glass.
At the assembly stage on the other side of the double buck, production assistant Lore Quebrado makes sure garments move smoothly along in the plant. Her bright face greets me, so photo-op time! She pauses a moment to smile. I see more cool tubes and stand under one. Ahhh—that cool air!
Nearby, Emory Kim, with 25 years experience in dry cleaning, uses the barcode scanner to complete an order for the automatic rack. She nods and says she loves the place.
The system connects to a kiosk in the front where customers can get their clean clothing at all hours. “They’re the customers’ clothes,” points out Karl Russ, “they need 24-7 access.”
He mentions that Tide has a sponsorship with the NFL, as we walk back toward the front and pause at the spotting board.
With some encouragement, I try to remove a tough stain near the front pocket of a nice shirt. After a little steam, spotting fluid, elbow grease, and an air blast, I ask Brian to step in and finish the task properly.
With a smile, he says, “I have more to do,” nodding toward several shirts, “so I better get to it!”
I’m near the end of my visit, and the time seems to have gone by too fast.
“We’re proud to show off our store,” Brian Russ says while offering a goodbye handshake at the front door.
“We give everything a Tide scrub,” father Karl says with a grin. “And every collar!”
And it’s so darn clean-smelling that I find it a little hard to leave. But I have a story to write!
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Dave Davis at [email protected].