Now THAT's what I call a laundromat

The first time I was ever in a laundromat was in sixth grade.

My friend Bernadette's family washing machine was on the fritz, and we were dispatched to do a couple of loads at Pat's Laundromat, which was across the street from her house. 

As I recall, the machines were front-loaders, and we forgot to put the Tide in before we started them up. So we opened the doors to throw a cup o' Tide in and nearly flooded the place out.

Everyone I knew growing up had a washing machine in their house. Over time, most acquired dryers as well.

In college, we had a nice and very clean laundry facility in the basement of the dorm. When I moved off campus, we used a not quite as nice and not quite as clean place on our street.

When I first moved to Beacon Hill, well over 40 years ago, I did my laundry in a scuzzy but convenient laundromat that has since been a corner store, a 7-11, another corner store, a bank - or two, and a Peet's Coffee. It now stands empty.

The biggest inconvenience about this laundromat was that, for a while, if you left your wash unwatched, you risked this skeevy guy coming in and taking your undies out of the washer or dryer. Ewwwww...

That placed closed, but there were two laundromats across the street. So no big deal.

This was before my husband and I moved in together. True to form, while I was using the skeevy laundromat, he was having his wash done for him at a place around the corner from where he lived.

Then we moved in together to a place that had laundry in the building. Yay!

Then we moved to a place that didn't have laundry in the building. Not-so-yay! 

But we had our routine: put the laundry in the washers, go across the street for dinner, run back over to put the laundry in the dryers, finish dinner. Voila! 

When we bought our condo 30 years ago, there was shared (free) laundry in the building. It's a small condo - six units - and while there are occasional problems, it's all worked out pretty well. The biggest issue was when a lovely woman with OCD lived here, and felt the need to wash a half dozen pairs of Lanz flannel PJ's pretty much every other day. On the extra-dirty, extra-long 2.5 hour cycle. Which she ran after she'd run the washer on empty through an extra-dirty, extra-long 2.5 hour cycle. Oh, and if you touched her laundry to move it along, she felt compelled to do it all over again.

Sometimes I'd just give up and go to the one laundromat still left standing on the Hill. A bit out of the way, but there is something to be said for being able to do multiple loads at once.

Anyway, none of the laundromats I've used have been any great shakes. Strictly utilitarian.

In Japan, they apparently take laundromat-ing more seriously. A lot more seriously. 

Some laundromats have gift shops. Cafés. Art exhibits. Staff members certified as laundry experts. People actually hang around in laundromats. Not to keep pervs away from their undies, but to read and work on their computers. 

At one Tokyo laundromat:

The services also include curated background music, some of which is available on the laundromat’s “Laundry Music” CD. It features 12 songs including a number called “Moody Dryer.” (Source: WSJ)

Laundromat habitué Chika Takayama:

...tried listening to one of the songs at home. “It just wasn’t the same,” she said. “The music here felt soothing, beautiful…maybe because the atmosphere is good and the lighting different.”

Good atmosphere? Decent lighting? You mean they don't have flickering fluorescent lighting there? I can only imagine.

The high-end go-to laundromat in Tokyo is Freddy Leck seni Waschsalon, "a cousin of the original in Berlin. It is the place with the wash-and-dry CD."

Freddy’s has collaborated with L.L. Bean on a limited-edition tote bag ($138), and puts its logo on a white staff coat that resembles a doctor’s lab coat ($157). The cafe serves an organic elderflower cordial and German wheat beer.

Not that I need yet another LL Bean tote bag, and not that I'd pay $138 for one if I did need one, but what a hoot. And the staff coat? Where might one wear this? Wouldn't it be something like "stolen valor" to wear a laundromat staff coat if one hadn't passed the certifying exam.  

Masato Nishikawa, 29, is one of the certified cleaning masters at Freddy’s after he passed a national exam in Japan. The exam is administered by each prefecture, with certificates recognized across the country.

The exam requires applicants to memorize characteristics of various textiles and puts them on the spot by making them distinguish the type of a particular stain and which chemical would dissolve it.

“I was always good at removing stains,” Mr. Nishikawa said.

I'm okay at stains, just not great.  As often as not, I don't spot them until I'm folding the laundry coming out of the dryer, by which point they're set. But I can do basics like blood, sweat, and ink. And I know enough about the "characteristics of various textiles" to know what to dry on low or medium, and what to line dry. Guess it comes down to the fact that I actually enjoy doing laundry, pretty much the only chore I can say that about. 

While the coronavirus has forced Freddy’s to postpone its in-person seminars on cleaning topics, Mr. Nishikawa is planning online tutorials, including a possible course on how to clean sneakers at home.

I'm assuming that this is not the same method we used to clean our white P.F. Flyers and Keds when we were young: polish them with white "nursing shoe" goop. 
  
Japan even runs a contest for best laundromat. And, yes, Freddy's has been the grand prize winner in the past. The California Laundry Café in Kyoto has also taken home a trophy for its design. The judges said that the design -  with its wooden floors, seasonal fruit smoothies, and general airiness - "makes you feel like you're in California." 

Decades ago, on a cross country camping trip, I logged a bit of time in California laundromats, and don't remember them as being anything special. So I'm hoping the judges mean that the California Laundry is like California - whatever that means -  and not your average California laundromat.

LL Bean tote bags. Stain and fabric experts. Fruit smoothies. Art shows. Not THAT's what I call a laundromat. If I'm ever in Japan, I'll make sure to stick my head in.