Suds City Depoe: Laundry services in your second living room
You are greeted at the door by the aroma of fresh linens. Washing machines hum along as you make your way to an open station. A young boy giggles and chatters with his friend in Spanish while playing pinball in the back. The person to your left talks on the phone in English while folding a colorful pile of shirts. You pull your laundry out and toss it into the machine, adding detergent and feeding the machine some change. Then it gets to work. A couch along the deep-sea walls calls you to come rest your feet.
Under new ownership, Suds City Depoe is more than a laundromat. It’s a place to rest and enjoy the simple task of doing laundry. It feels like your second living room.
Alfredo Mendez and Liliana Perez, owners of El Torito Meat Market and Supermarket, bought Suds City Depoe from a tenant in November who was planning to close the doors. The business had been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. “He didn’t want to renew his lease anymore, so we offered to buy his business,” Perez said.
Mendez and Perez bought the building a few years back with the hope of moving El Torito Meat Market into it, but plans changed. Instead, they opened up El Torito Supermarket in a different location on Lancaster Drive. They have served the Salem community in the grocery business for 18 years now, expanding El Torito Meat Market to a number of locations across Oregon. “Me and my husband have always been in the grocery business, and we love working with customers,” Perez said.
Perez said the laundromat is a different kind of business than they’re used to, but it has been a quick learning experience. The principles of hard work and excellent customer service remain unchanged. Suds City Depoe has undergone significant renovation since the transfer of leadership. It now provides practical service with an enjoyable ambiance.
The laundromat offers plenty of washing, drying, and folding stations, as well as a convenient drop-off service, where the staff do all the work for you. “Sometimes people are busy, and they don’t have time. So they can just do drop-offs,” Perez said. “We’re there to try to give our best service.”
They also offer a loyalty rewards program for the regulars who frequently make use of the space. Every washing or drying cycle brings you closer to one “on the house”. Hilda P., manager of Suds City Depoe, calls it “a way for us to give back to the customers.”
Mendez and Perez kept the customer in mind when creating the space. The attached convenience store is a sweet relief when people get hungry. Kids stay entertained in the arcade while parents are folding clothes. Or people can find a couch, kick their feet up, and enjoy a show while they wait. “It’s like a living room where they can chill,” Hilda said.
Mendez and Perez are excited to serve the Salem community in a new way. They continue to offer fresh, high quality meats and goods at their El Torito locations, and now they offer convenient and reasonably priced laundry services at Suds City Depoe. “We love our jobs. We love what we do,” Perez said.
Perez said customers love their services too, and they plan to continue offering them. Customers who use the laundromat will no doubt find it to be a pleasant place of convenience, community, rest, and refreshment.