There are a lot of people that have no idea about a hidden industry that provides an incredible service. It’s not glamorous, it’s not sexy, in fact, it’s the complete opposite. It’s commercial laundry.

Every single restaurant, yogurt shop, sandwich shop, and bar on the Central Coast needs towels to clean their kitchens and counters. A lot of these establishments also use things like aprons, grill pads to clean their grills, mops and dust mops to clean their floors and even things like table linens and napkins. Do you think these establishments wash all of that laundry themselves? No sir!

All of these establishments used a commercial laundry service. These Services have been around for over a hundred years and yet very few people know anything about them. These laundry services provide things like uniform services, floor mat services, and even hotel linen cleaning services.

It is a service that is an extremely high demand. Big companies throughout the Central Coast here are constantly competing against one another to attract new clients to their services. There are literally companies that are willing to drive an hour and a half or more from down south to service a small account out in Paso Robles. Some of these big name companies are companies like Mission Linen locate it out in Morro Bay and Santa Maria. Aramark is another that will come all the way out from Lompoc to service a yogurt shop in Atascadero. Unifirst will drive all the way out from Fresno to service San Luis Obispo. Prudential, another linen and uniform business out in Santa Barbara will send a truck from all the way out there to service accounts in our county.  These companies are that competitive for accounts here San Luis Obispo County.

These businesses start off with a small vehicle coming over to pick up the dirty laundry and replace it with clean laundry while they go out and clean up what they just picked up. They usually start off with multiple small washers and dryers, that for the most part, gets the job done. This is the way things got started for AmeriPride and also a lot of these other laundry businesses. They all start to reinvest a lot of their profits into buying bigger and more efficient laundry equipment.

There are companies that have washing machines that could literally wash over 400 lbs of laundry at a time. These companies also have dryers that you can literally stand up in. They purchase equipment that can dry, iron, and fold an entire sheet or tablecloth in about 30 seconds. If you were to actually see the equipment these massive laundry facilities use, you would be blown away that such equipment even exists.

These companies also offer uniform services. Again, a much-needed service for so many establishments on the Central Coast. These companies will purchase the uniforms and basically rent them out to their customers. This leaves these companies in charge of maintaining and cleaning the uniforms on a weekly basis for their customer’s employees. If a uniform is damaged, stained, or missing buttons these companies will fix or replace the uniform. A company like AmeriPride has an incredible reputation for providing excellent uniform services.

These companies have what they call “route drivers” that pretty much are the face of their companies driving around in big box trucks. These are the employees that are responsible for stocking up their customers with their clean linens, towels, floor mats, and uniforms. They load up their trucks with everything they need to deliver for that day. They keep track of inventories. They are responsible for “loss charging” any damaged or lost product. They answer the customer’s question on products and services. They pick up heavy soiled bags of dirty linens and follow a set route while doing it. It is a very demanding job and the people that do it are a rare breed for sure! They need the physical strength to do the job while also have exceptional customer service skills.

Again, Ameripride does an exceptional job of finding the perfect person to run each and every one of their routes. They treat their employees very well and it shows the quality of the product and the customer service they provide.

If you own a local business or restaurant here on the Central Coast, I’m sure you’ve been approached by one of those big companies offering you linen services like uniform, floor mat, towel, and dust mops and mops for your establishment. As a matter of fact, you might just be using one of those companies right now.

If you’re looking to start up service or switch from a company you use now, keep this in mind. Heavy competition means that you as the consumer will get a great deal. All those companies will indeed fight for your business. If you decide to go with any one of these big five, makes sure you get quotes from all five of them.

In our opinion, Ameripride provides the best of both quality of product along with customer service. In the end, however, the choice is up to you.