Speaker A [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Laundromat News Today. I am your favorite laundromat news anchor, bringing you news from around the world, all things laundromat related. And we’re going to kick it off as always with Alliance Laundry and the Alliance Laundry ticker. Where are we sitting at? You know, they went public back, I think, in October of 2025. And so I like to keep an eye on where they’re, where they’re sitting. So as of the recording of this, uh, they’re sitting at $22.61. I believe, which over the last month is up about 6.1%. Over the last year, however, it’s down about 15%.

Speaker A [00:00:42]:
And lifetime, where are we sitting? We’re down about 9.5%. Nope. Is that right? Yeah, 9.5% over its lifetime. So up in the short term, down overall. So just keep an eye on Laundry. and, uh, Lions and seeing what’s happening with those guys. Um, just wanted to drop a little bit of event news. 2 things coming up, uh, one sooner than the other.

Speaker A [00:01:09]:
First of all, on November 12th, 2026, if you’re watching this before that, we’ve got the Vended Laundry Experience happening in Downtown Disney. I’ll be there emceeing it. There’s a host of legit all-stars of the industry that are going to be there sharing their experience, sharing their wisdom and knowledge, and I think there’s a lot of people coming to this thing, so it’s going to be a great networking event. So if you can get to Anaheim, California on November 12th, come to the full-day Vended Laundry Experience. It’s going to be a really good time. And another event that’s coming up in July, July 15th to 18th of 2027, is the Clean Show. So, and that’s going to be in Vegas. So mark it on your calendars, July 15th to 18th, 2027, Clean Show will be in Vegas.

Speaker A [00:01:57]:
And, uh, hopefully I’ll see some of you guys there. Um, we got a technology portion of the news today. Stuff is happening. Okay, people, there are things going on that we need to be aware of. There’s a lot of stuff happening, but I wanna highlight a couple of things. First, let’s just talk robots. Okay. So Dyna has a semi-humanoid robot that they are claiming can complete a commercial laundry shift.

Speaker A [00:02:25]:
Um, autonomously without any human intervention whatsoever. So the whole workflow, um, yeah, man, I mean, it’s, and they’re, yeah, they’re saying they, it can perform tasks that demand both physical dexterity and complex reasoning. So I know at the last Clean Show, one of the big highlights of the show was, uh, a folding robot. This is one that can move around, uh, the shop and complete commercial orders. So really interesting. Um, listen, I know, uh, it was the folding robot at the Clean if you were there and you saw it. It was really cool on the one hand. On the other hand, it was a little bit slow, although it did get faster throughout the, the event.

Speaker A [00:03:06]:
But man, I’m, I’m telling you, AI’s been the big news for a long time. Robotics is about to be the next big boom. And laundry is ironically one of the things that is a focus of the robotics here. So Dyna-powered robot. Well, also Apple is getting into the game and they’re working on a robot that can fold laundry. This is more for geared towards homeowners and they’re doing some other robotics things for household chores and help people at home. But they are getting into the folding robot game. So Apple looking to tackle that problem too.

Speaker A [00:03:46]:
And another interesting thing happening is a car was recently built out of washing machine parts. Um, they said that it should go 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds. And if you don’t believe it, you can take it for a spin. Ah, ah, okay. There’s no car made out of washing machines. That’s a joke for today. So dumb. I’m, I apologize.

Speaker A [00:04:08]:
I apologize to you. Okay. Um, yeah, but watch out for the robots. Stuff is happening here on the robotics front. I would not be surprised if we start seeing equipment coming into Uh, our stores here pretty soon with AI capabilities, with robotics kind of built into it. So I don’t know, man, it’s, it’s an interesting time to be in the industry. However, that brings us to the ever popular, it’s been making the rounds in our industry, Wall Street Journal article. There’s also an AOL article, um, about how laundromats have been hyped up and are they worth the hype? which is really interesting.

Speaker A [00:04:50]:
So the title, if you haven’t seen it or heard of it yet, Wall Street Journal article, the title of it is, The Internet Told Him Owning a Laundromat Was Easy Money. It Was Anything But. And it’s a story of, at least it starts out as a story of an owner in a city I used to live in, actually, Fullerton, California, Southern California, who bought into the hype and found out that You know, the thing I’ve been saying for a long time, whenever you are working with people and whenever you’re working with machines, you’re gonna have problems. And laundromats have a lot of machines and a lot of people coming through. So there are problems when you get into this industry. It’s not all passive and it’s not always easy. Um, but there’s a very popular article going around about that. And in fact, a lot of, you know, it, it kind of comes down on laundromat influencers, but a lot of laundromat influencers are actually featured in this article as well.

Speaker A [00:05:40]:
Um, some Friends of yours and mine that we see on the internet. So worth a look if you’re interested in that. And AOL article also gives a little details. The AOL article is almost an article on the Wall Street Journal article, but it gives you some some glimpses of what was in that article too, and then gives its kind of own perspective. So again, I mean, you know, it’s interesting because laundromats have been having their heyday for a little while now, and I’m wondering if the pendulum is going to swing back a little bit. If you’re out there looking to buy, maybe this might be a good time if if people start getting. Down on laundromats again for a little bit, then hey, maybe you can swoop in and pick yourself up a laundromat. I know it’s been hard to find.

Speaker A [00:06:21]:
And then one other article that’s— it’s not a negative article, but good buddy, former podcast guest JD Dixon wrote a super good article in the American Coin-Op magazine talking about the emotional cost of opening a laundromat. And that’s a really good read. It has a lot to do with building out stores and getting started. So, um, in, in the emotional side of things, which I think doesn’t get talked about a lot. So really great article. Kudos to JD Dixon for writing that one. And, uh, if you’re— in fact, if you’re not subscribed, he has a newsletter. Uh, if you’re not subscribed to that, you should probably get subscribed to that one because he’s sending out a lot of really good, um, articles behind the scenes.

Speaker A [00:07:04]:
Been in the industry a long time, super smart guy, and, uh, definitely worth a read if you are some kind of, you know, laundry dweeb. All right, so if you haven’t heard yet, this is just, you know, hot off the presses. Curbside Laundries and Laundry Works are integrating together so that you can link your washers and dryers to be able to start wash and fold orders. So listen, whenever these companies kind of get together and make things easier for us, I’m a big fan of that. So kudos to those guys for working out the details of, of that and making it happen for us. All right. So let’s go international for a second. 2 places that I’ve just recently been this year making the news.

Speaker A [00:07:49]:
So first of all, Tallinn, Estonia is in the news. I was there earlier in the summer and all of a sudden laundromats are popping up all over the place. So nearly everybody has washing machines in Estonia and there used to be laundromats there maybe like 60 years ago, but they went away. Um, and in fact, it’s been kind of taboo to wash your clothes in public. That’s how they view it, washing your clothes in public. So going to the laundromat is washing your clothes in public. So they saw it as kind of taboo, but all of a sudden all these laundromats are popping up all over Tallinn, Estonia. And this is an article kind of talking about why.

Speaker A [00:08:25]:
And a lot of it has to do with a lot of stuff we talk about, right? It’s like convenience, time, time savings. You know, a lot of them have washers but no dryers. And so if you dry, you got to have like a balcony. And if you don’t have a balcony, drying in the house is kind of of a pain. The washers are a little bit slower. So it’s a really interesting article. It’s not— the author of the article is not fully on board with it and questions the time savings. If you have to actually go to a laundromat, are you really saving time? So it’s really interesting, but I think it’s a fascinating take on a culture that saw washing in public as taboo and now is starting to see an explosion of laundromats in the country there.

Speaker A [00:09:12]:
So really kind of fascinating read. I recommend you read it. And by the way, if you’re looking to look into more in-depth and read about these articles or read these articles that we’re talking about here, make sure you’re subscribed over at laundromatresource.com. We send out the newsletter with links to all the articles every week that it comes out. Okay. One other place internationally Um, that came out with an article that I also was at earlier this year, which is Singapore. And there’s a really fascinating article about the economics of opening a laundromat in Singapore, which is, I don’t know, it’s just kind of fascinating to me to read about that. And you know what’s interesting about a lot of Asia, Southeast Asia, a lot of places actually, even Europe, I’d say this is true, Australia, this is true.

Speaker A [00:09:57]:
A lot of their laundromats that they have, their self-serve laundromats are much smaller than ours. So in fact, you know, in the article it was saying, hey, you know, the average investment estimate for a laundromat in Singapore is $130,000 to $150,000, right? And that would be a low cost, probably a zombie mat in the States in most places. But they’re small and they have 6 to 8 washers and dryers. So they’re usually a lot smaller. But when I was in Singapore, we went to a couple of them and very nice little neighborhood laundromats. They keep them clean, they keep them looking nice. And yeah, so it’s an interesting article about the economics of opening a laundromat in Singapore. Okay, almost there here.

Speaker A [00:10:45]:
I just wanted to highlight that the deadline is December 7th for SBA awards. So if you want to nominate yourself, you can nominate yourself, or if you want to nominate another laundromat owner to, you know, to have a chance to win an SBA National Small Business Week award, 2027, now is the time to do it. December 7th is the deadline. So, um, check that out. You can nominate yourself and you can nominate somebody else. So if you feel weird about nominating yourself, then, you know, have a friend nominate you or co-nominate somebody else or both, right? Um, I love to see some laundromat owners win an SBA award. Sorry, I’m choking over here. Uh, my voice has been giving out, but we’re getting there.

Speaker A [00:11:31]:
And finally, I gotta wrap up the news episode with a video that’s kind of gone viral, uh, over the last week or two of— and hopefully you saw it. If you didn’t, it’s worth a look. There’s a deer that goes rogue. I don’t even know where this is at, but there’s a deer that goes rogue, uh, Winston-Salem laundromat. And it kind of comes in out of nowhere. There’s security camera footage of this thing comes in out of nowhere and it drop kicks somebody in the parking lot and then it jumps through the window into the laundromat. Oh my gosh. The laundromat.

Speaker A [00:12:03]:
It wreaks havoc in the laundromat, jumps out the window, and then hurdles a car on its way out. So wild, wild stuff. Listen, we already talked about this. Laundromats are not boring. There are problems that come up. Sometimes there are things that you can anticipate. Sometimes a deer jumps in your window and wreaks havoc on your laundromat and just leaves and drop kicks one of your customers on the way in or out. So, uh, check that video out.

Speaker A [00:12:28]:
It was Wild. Never seen anything like that. But, uh, that is the news for laundromats worldwide. All things laundromats. This is Jordan Berry with Laundromat News Today. And, uh, listen, we survived this thing. My voice more or less hold up— held up, and, uh, we got through it here. So we’ll see you on the next one.

Speaker A [00:12:46]:
Peace.