Paul Szmal: Alright, Chuck's here. Chuck Inkle's joining us from the Laundry Depot with two locations and soon to be another one. We'll get to that, but good morning. How are you today?
Chuck Hinkel: I'm doing well. It's great to have you back here. We haven't talked in a while. The bed and breakfast business, or the Airbnb, whatever short-term rental, is just taking off for you.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, it's been crazy. So this past season we did a little over 400. We're expecting to do a little over 500 this upcoming season. We're opening up service on Cayuga and Owasco Lake this year, so we're expanding our map some more. So we really concentrated on Cayuga and Seneca Lake when we started, and now that we're starting to branch out into other lakes as well.
Chuck Hinkel: I have a theory about successful business people, and I say that they figure out what people want before the people themselves figure it out. So when was the first time that you saw this market there? Because it's a pain in the butt. If you're the owner of one of these properties, somebody stays for a night or two, they gather up all the laundry, bring it in, sit there while it washes, and you said, hey, I got a better idea.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. So one of the things that I did, I did a little research about the area and realized that the infrastructure on the lakes, there's not a lot of public water, a lot of public sewer. So you're on leach fields, you're on wells. So what we do by bringing in our laundry service, it eliminates the stress on the wells, the leach fields, and things of that nature. And more importantly, it puts time back in people's day, especially property owners who, like you said, don't really want to deal with it on a daily basis. We come and get it, we do it, we bring it back to you. It's just, it's a great service.
And I think it's a testament to how we do it over the last three years. We've had exactly one customer leave us, and the only reason why they left us was because they wanted to do it themselves. So in three years, we've grown all these properties, and we really haven't seen anybody really leave us. We just continue to add, and it's worked out really well.
Chuck Hinkel: Well, and that's the thing you've done since day one. You took a look at the whole laundry experience and said, wow, a lot of this kind of sucks. I think we can do it better.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, no, definitely. We just actually just completed our five-year renovation of the Waterloo store. It was a $375,000 reinvestment into that property. Everything is brand new. We have the bigger equipment, we have small equipment, we have our cart system, we have a loyalty program that has given away over 6,000 free washes over that time frame. You can still do the coin. We're heavily involved in the community. Holistically, we've tried to look at it from the big picture and really try to not only be a good business, but be a good community partner. And both of those mesh really well together.
So coming soon, everything has to be all signed and sealed. So we can't say yet for sure where, but location number three on the way.
Chuck Hinkel: Location number three on the way. This is something we've been working on for a little over a year. It's not easy adding another location, finding a location and really looking at the demographics strategically where you want to expand to. So all that plays into the factor of where we go. And just not only for the laundromat business, but our Airbnb business, where can we put our third location that'll be the most beneficial for us and how we can expand further down the road.
Paul Szmal: Well, and like you said, one of the things about your business is you need massive amounts of water. Does that limit the number of locations you can be in?
Chuck Hinkel: 100% it does. 100% it does. And that's one of the challenges in the business that we're in is water and sewer is not cheap in the Finger Lakes. So that's something that we battle with. And that's one of the reasons why we have renovated our stores. We've become way more efficient. So we've kind of offset that a little bit by being more efficient than normal in the laundromat business.
Paul Szmal: As a big customer, do you have any wiggle room? Can you negotiate with a municipality on the rate?
Chuck Hinkel: I've tried. I've tried. My dealings with the Village of Waterloo on water and sewer is well-documented. So, you know, I understand some of their problems. The infrastructure in a lot of the towns are older, so they need money to kind of do that. And, you know, I think they're looking into a water, a Seneca County Water Authority now, which I think will actually help a little bit with that. It's not going to happen over... it's going to happen over a lot of time, but I think that's something that will be good for everybody in the area once that's all completed and up and running.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, because they're looking at that whole corridor up by the thruway and Route 414 and realizing that's one of the big things when people come in. They want the infrastructure ready. They don't want to be told, well, we'll have it ready for you in a year and a half.
Chuck Hinkel: Yeah. And that's the other thing too is the wine industry is such a big, big area. They really don't have access to a lot of water, public water, stuff like that. So if they can figure out a way to maybe get some federal dollars to be able to build infrastructure down there and tap them into the market, I think you'll see prices drop because they're going to be able to go in there, use stuff, and it'll spread the cost of water and sewer out more, which hopefully in return will actually drop people's water bills.
Paul Szmal: One last thing, where can I get one of those NFL game day jackets?
Chuck Hinkel: This is actually just a gift I got the other day from Netflix. I did a Christmas game for Netflix. So I'm still doing CBS and it's been 19 years I've been doing that for them. So it's fun.
Paul Szmal: Third location coming soon. The website is laundrydepotny.com. We just scratched the surface here because I had a short visit. The college student program, loyalty program, Greg uses it every 10th is free. Always great to see you. Thanks for advertising with us and continued success with the business.
Chuck Hinkel: Yeah, thanks for having us. You guys have been a big part of our growth, so we appreciate it. We always appreciate it. It's 7.58 now, FLX morning. Hey, have you heard the latest news? I have and I couldn't believe it.
