Depending on your lifestyle you may need access to a dry cleaner regularly, particularly if you work in an office environment with a dress code or frequent social outings that require formal wear. Finding a trustworthy dry cleaner near you should not be taken lightly. After all, you are trusting the cleaners with your wardrobe which costs money, and ultimately can affect how you look and feel each day.

We put together a list of the top factors you should consider when choosing a dry cleaner near you in order to help you find the best option nearby.

1.) Cleaning Quality

Arguably the most important factor to consider when searching for a cleaner nearby is determining whether or not the cleaner is able to provide you with high-quality, professional cleaning. The easiest way to find this out is to try the cleaner yourself. If you choose to do so, it might be a good idea to start small and only provide a few clothing items that are relatively easy to clean, such as dress shirts. This way, you’re not putting too much of your wardrobe at risk.

Otherwise, we recommend doing your research on the cleaner to find out how long they have been in business and what their customers say about them. Sites such as Yelp! are helpful because customers are able to leave a review and post photos, which gives you a preview of what the service is like at the prospective cleaner.

Additionally, cleaners may have a website where they provide a brief description of their experience and list reasons why they are the right cleaner for you.

At Rinse, we have decades of cleaning experience. Our Co-founder James Joun has been in dry cleaning for over 30 years. As such, we know what it takes to provide high-quality cleaning and have been doing so for many years in several locations.

Another way to find out if a dry cleaner is able to provide you with high-quality cleaning is by asking them questions. (HINT: if you need to ask Rinse a question you can email us anytime at [email protected].)

For example, you can bring in an item that you know will need extra care and attention, such as a formal dress with ornamentation, and ask the cleaners how they would handle the cleaning process. By doing so, you’ll gain a better understanding of how knowledgeable the cleaner is and it will help you determine if they are able to provide you with quality cleaning service that you can trust.

2.) Accessibility

Finding a dry cleaner that is accessible for you and your schedule is another important factor to consider. Many dry cleaners are only open during normal business hours (e.g. 9am to 5pm). If you do find a cleaner near you, may have to navigate parking or the lack thereof. However, this schedule causes issues for most of us since we typically work during the day. Spending precious minutes before or after work to drive to the cleaners isn’t a great use of your time either.

In addition, you will want to find out if any cleaners near you offer a delivery service. If they do, they may only deliver during the day which isn’t helpful if you work or they may only deliver within a certain radius.

Rinse has addressed these two major pain points to make dry cleaning more accessible and easier than ever. We offer door-to-door pickup and delivery 7 days a week between 8pm and 10pm. With this schedule, our customers are able to fit dry cleaning into their daily routine.

3.) Damage Policies

Accidents and mistakes happen to the best of us, including professional cleaners. If your next cleaner inadvertently loses or damages your items it’s important to understand how the cleaner will handle the situation and what your options are as their customer.

While reputable cleaners rarely lose or damage items, they might have policies in place just in case the worst-case scenario does happen.

At Rinse, we have the best guarantee on the market. In the rare instance that an item goes missing or is damaged during the cleaning process, we will provide reimbursement for up to the full value of that item ($1,000 max per order), in accordance with our terms and conditions.

Furthermore, if you’re not satisfied with the cleaning of your clothes, we will re-clean them — free of charge.

4.) Additional Services

While you may be in the market for dry cleaning today you never know what you might need in the future. Finding a cleaner near you that does more than just dry cleaning is valuable because it will save you time from having to search for another cleaner and perhaps even save you money depending on the type of service you’re looking for.

It’s rather difficult for dry cleaners to offer laundry services but you may be lucky and live near one that offers both laundry and dry cleaning.

Another reason why Rinse is a leader in the clothing care industry is that we offer a variety of services including Wash & Fold, Hang Dry, Dry Cleaning, Launder & Press, Repairs, and Leather Cleaning.

Many of our Dry Cleaning customers end up using us for Wash & Fold and vice versa. You may need a cleaner that is versatile sometime in the future so finding a cleaner that offers several services now as opposed to later can save you time in the long-run.

Perhaps you are already thinking of this given what has transpired as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Now more than ever, door-to-door services are becoming much more important. Rinse will continue to a leader in the space and provide door-to-door delivery service to those who need it

Choosing a dry cleaner near you shouldn’t just be based on the proximity of the cleaner to your home — it’s a decision that should take into account everything from pricing, convenience, experience, and quality.

 

Cleaning Service Reviewed, one of the leading independent review sites for cleaners around the world, has named Rinse as one of the Top 9 Best Dry Cleaners in San Francisco! Receiving this recognition would not be possible without the hard-work and dedication from our team at Rinse including our Valets, Cleaning Partners, Customer Care team, and all of our local Operations teams.

We appreciate the support of all of our customers, especially our customers in the Bay Area. We're proud to be recognized as one of the best dry cleaners in San Francisco and look forward to continuing to serve the San Francisco Bay Area for years to come!  

Rinse has always worked to help local businesses. In the wake of COVID-19, we have spent significant time and energy helping our Local Cleaning Partners navigate the current environment.

In addition, we know there are other ways we can help local business while also helping our customers get through this. To that end, we have partnered with our friends at Union Kitchen to bring you a “Stay-at-Home Snack Pack” that they have created with a focus on products that are made in Washington, DC.

The Basics

Union Kitchen has curated a Snack Pack that consists primarily of assorted items that are made locally in the Washington D.C. area (and they’ve even included hand sanitizer for good measure!). Each box sold helps support these local businesses while bringing you some great snacks to enjoy.

The price of each Stay-at-Home Snack Pack is $50. Each box includes the following items:

• 2 – Tony's Chocolonely Small Chocolate Bars - (1 Milk Chocolate, 1 Caramel Sea Salt)
• 1 – Stacy's Pita Chips (1.5oz - Cinnamon Sugar)
• 1 – Kettle Chips (5oz - Sour Cream & Onion)
• 2 – Wood Fire Big Bag Pita Chips – (1 Garlic Parmesan, 1 Za’atar)
• 1 – Berg Bites - Chocolate Peanut Butter Madness 
• 1 – Afirma Water (750 mL bottle)
• 2 – Clark's Cubes (1 coffee, 1 tea)
• 1 – Sahale California Almonds
• 1 – Meat Empire Biltong
• 1 – Tasty 6 - Relax & Rest
• 1 – Ignite Bar - Salted Chocolate
• 2 – Snacklins – (1 BBQ, 1 Chesapeake)
• 1 – Walt's Waffle & Pancake Mix
• 1 – Compass Coffee Hand Sanitizer (6 oz)

How To Order

You can request a Stay-at-Home Snack Pack by texting SNACKS to 746-73 (“RINSE”) or emailing [email protected] We will confirm availability with you before your delivery, and you will be charged the $50 upon delivery. Customers may order more than one Snack Pack at a time.

Note that if you choose to order a Snack Pack without an additional Rinse service like laundry or dry cleaning, it will be subject to our standard Service Fee and Health & Safety Fee.

We hope you enjoy Union Kitchen’s Snack Pack as much as we have. More importantly, we hope you continue to stay safe and healthy, and stay home if you can.

For Non-Rinse Customers:

If you have not used Rinse before but would like to order a Stay-at-Home Snack Pack, please take the following steps:

1. Create your free account here.
2. Follow the instructions to schedule a pickup and create your account. If you would like to ONLY order a Stay-at-Home Snack Pack and do not plan to use Rinse’s clothing care services, that’s okay. The signup process will ask you to select the type of service you are looking for (just go ahead and select any option).
3. Once you have created your account, simply text “SNACKS” to 746-73. We will confirm availability with you before your delivery, and you will be charged the $50 upon delivery plus our standard Service Fee and Health & Safety Fee. You may order more than one Snack Pack at a time.

More on Union Kitchen

Union Kitchen is a food and beverage business accelerator in DC. It builds Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands through its manufacturing infrastructure which includes a commercial kitchen, retail stores, and distribution. Since starting in 2012, Union Kitchen has worked with over 650 food businesses, including DC favorites Compass Coffee, Snacklins, Eat Pizza, Swapples.

Terms of Use

Read more about our Terms of Use here.

 

Did you know that the vast majority of children entering foster care have to carry their belongings in garbage bags? There are more than 55,000 children in foster care in California today and due to limited financial means, Social Services cannot provide luggage to pack a child’s essential belongings before bringing them to a foster home. If no bags are donated, Social Services often uses trash bags out of necessity. It is tragic enough that a child has been abused or neglected, but to have all of his or her items put into trash bags can place a feeling of worthlessness on the child.

No child should feel like garbage, and no child should have to carry their belongings around in a garbage bag. That’s why Rinse is so proud to support and raise awareness for Bags4Kids, a southern California non-profit that provides foster children with “bags of hope.”

Bags4Kids and their work

The bags of hope that Bags4Kids provides are not just a means of transporting foster children’s possessions, but also include items of necessity and comfort to help these children during one of the most stressful periods of their lives.

Each bag of hope includes necessities that a child will need in their new home like a toothbrush and shampoo -- items they may not have had access to or been able to pack from their previous living situation. The bags also include items to bring them comfort and distraction as they adjust to their new home. Depending on the child’s age, the bags of hope can include items ranging from stuffed animals and other toys to art supplies, journals, books, and school supplies.

An opportunity to help

During the first week of March, 2020, Rinse was able to donate over 2,500 duffle bags to Bags4Kids to support their important cause.

If you’re familiar with our service, you know that we provide each customer with a premium duffle bag to use for their laundry. As we’ve grown, we’ve built up a very large supply and this spring we found a surplus of 2,500+ brand-new duffle bags. Through a member of the Rinse team, we learned about Bags4Kids, their incredible work, and their need for supplies -- including duffle bags!

Bags4Kids has already assembled and donated the first several hundred Rinse + Bags4Kids bags of hope to social service organizations and police stations throughout southern California. Even in the face of the coronavirus, Bags4Kids continues their work, providing comfort to some of the most vulnerable children in our community.

Make Mom Proud

Since our founding, one of Rinse’s core values has been to “Make Mom Proud.” We are so grateful and proud to support such a wonderful organization and raise awareness for their important work.

If you would like to learn more about Bags4Kids and how to support them, please visit https://bags4kids.org/.

 

 

The Coronavirus has had a devastating effect on small businesses everywhere. As a small business ourselves, we have felt these effects firsthand. We also work very closely with smaller businesses (our Cleaning Partners are local dry cleaners and laundromats) who are hurting during these challenging times and are less well-equipped to navigate.

Our Cleaning Partners tend to look like many of the small businesses that are struggling across the country today - sole proprietors, often immigrant-run, and very dependent on day-to-day sales to make payroll and pay rent.

Since early March, we have been working very closely with our Cleaning Partners to help them navigate the current environment. Through this process, we have had to learn quickly how to operate in the “new normal” that COVID-19 has created. To that end, we wanted to share some thoughts on our approach in case it helps you (or a small business owner you know) today or as you prepare to re-open in the coming months.

Our approach to helping our Cleaning Partners can be broken down into three main categories:

1. Prevention - taking steps to put in preventive measures and reduce the risk of transmission.
2. Relief - making sure our partners understand relief programs available and the steps needed to apply and benefit from them, where applicable.
3. Support - doing whatever we can to help navigate the business challenges related to COVID-19.

Prevention

At Rinse, our approach to managing the operational complexity in our business is to “always be paranoid; never be complacent.” Never have those words been more important than right now. We’ve worked very closely with our Cleaning Partners to ensure they are well positioned to prevent transmission and keep their teams, our teams, and our customers safe. Here are a few key steps we have taken to maximize safety and optimize prevention:

• Making sure our partners have the necessary supplies - The first step was to make sure our partners had all the necessary supplies to implement key preventive measures. Given the significant demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) today, purchasing items such as masks, gloves, soap, and disinfectants is very challenging. Rinse has spent considerable time and effort in finding and procuring key supplies, often sourcing from multiple suppliers in various geographies, and at times shipping supplies from well-stocked Rinse offices to areas where we had less available supply. We are covering the cost of these supplies for our Cleaning Partners as needed, and have focused on providing core items such as disinfectant, soap, gloves, and face masks for all staff to wear throughout their shifts.
  
  
   
• Making sure our partners understand how to implement key preventive measures - We gave our Cleaning Partners clear procedures to follow and train their staff on, mirroring what we were already doing at Rinse. These efforts included:
  • Sharing our internal processes with Cleaning Partners on how frequently we take certain measures such as hand washing and wiping down surfaces.
  • Sharing any real-time updates we learn from CDC, OSHA, or local government guidance on how to ensure a safe workplace.
  • Creating signs in both English and Spanish for our Cleaning Partners to post in their facilities so their staff had clear instructions and reminders for proper handwashing techniques, social distancing, and to send people home if sick.
  • Working with our Cleaning Partners to help them adjust their processes and stagger shifts so they could maximize social distance and limit in-building occupancy. 

Over the coming weeks as our various markets look to relax shelter-in-place restrictions, we will continuously monitor local and state ordinances to make sure that each of our Cleaning Partners remains compliant and ahead of the curve.
 

• Making sure our Cleaning Partners are executing on these key preventive measures daily - Our Cleaning Partners are a core part of our team, so they were asked to follow the same daily protocol that each of our local operations teams follow. In addition to frequent hand washing, regular disinfecting of all surfaces, and strict social distancing, we asked all of our teams and Cleaning Partners to take daily pictures of these measures in action. Not only did this serve to hold everyone accountable and reinforce behavior, but the daily pictures also made it very clear across all of Rinse’s markets that we were all working together to keep our team and customers safe.

   

Relief

In addition to practicing strong preventive measures, we needed to act quickly to help our Cleaning Partners weather the financial challenges of this period. The first step was to help our Partners understand the various relief programs available.

When COVID-19 hit, there was a massive wave of relief efforts undertaken by the government at the federal, state, and local levels. The amount of information that emerged was significant, as was the level of complexity. Some of our Cleaning Partners did not have issues understanding and navigating the complexity of these programs, while others didn’t know where to start. We spent time proactively reaching out to our partners with information we had on programs such as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL), and various other relief efforts available to them.

In addition, we helped some of our Cleaning Partners with their immediate cash management needs by letting them know when local governments had suspended or delayed collection of water, sewer, and utility bills. We also made sure they understood what opportunities for rent relief or protection were available to them.

(Note: there are many articles out there with links to various relief programs available, so we won’t include them here, but if you are interested in a more detailed list, please email us at [email protected] and we’ll share it with you).

Support

Once preventive measures were in place and our Cleaning Partners understood the relief options available, our main focus was and has been to continue to support our Cleaning Partners in this new environment.

To be clear, these have been challenging times for our Cleaning Partners. Despite being essential services and remaining open, Dry Cleaners have experienced dramatic revenue reduction with the halt in business travel and the rise in work-from-home behavior. For many of our Dry Cleaning Partners, Rinse is now their only source of revenue since most customers have stopped visiting stores in person. Business has also declined for our Wash & Fold Partners as customers choose to stay at home or are hesitant to use public, in-store, washers and dryers. As a result, we have worked to support our Cleaning Partners in a few key ways:

• Reducing overall costs and simplifying operations - Rinse worked closely with our Cleaning Partners to share revenue forecasts based on early metrics we were seeing in our own business. Sharing this information helped our Cleaning Partners make proactive staffing changes and operating adjustments to weather the storm. We removed constraints such as 2-Day Rush Dry Cleaning so our Cleaning Partners can work flexible hours and operate on alternate days to reduce overall costs. In addition, we have supported our partners who have chosen to pause operations at the moment and are ready to pick up where we left off with them whenever they decide they are ready to work again.

• Helping improve working capital - In an environment like this, cash on hand is critical, so we have worked closely with our Cleaning Partners to help with cash management where we can. For some Cleaning Partners, we have shortened our payment terms to ensure they have access to working capital sooner to cover costs such as payroll and rent. In some instances, we have seen an increase in volume for certain Partners because their counterparts have closed down for the time being. To help them accept and service that volume, we have purchased additional supplies and equipment for them, such as folding boards. In addition, we have shouldered the cost of COVID-19 related supplies to make sure our Cleaning Partners don’t have to trade off safety with being able to pay the bills.
• Creating new revenue streams - Rinse is working with our Cleaning Partners to produce reusable cloth masks. We initially asked our Cleaning Partners to make them for our internal team, and then we decided to ramp up production to sell masks to our customers. These masks are not only providing a great service for our team, our customers, and the public at large, but they are creating a new income stream for our Cleaning Partners and helps them keep their staff working.

Rinse has had a close relationship with its Cleaning Partners since we launched in 2013. We are very proud of the way each of our Cleaning Partners has responded during a challenging time, and we’re proud of how closely our local teams have worked with them to make sure they have the support they need. COVID-19 is presenting unprecedented challenges and the only way we will all get through this is to work together.

If you are a business working to navigate COVID-19, or if you are contemplating how to re-open in a COVID-19 world, we hope the information above is helpful. If we can be of assistance, or if you have feedback based on what you’ve learned, please email [email protected] and let us know.

If you’ve ever tried to take care of your dry cleaning and laundry after work or on the weekends, you’re probably familiar with the fact that most cleaners only operate Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm -- a point of major frustration for anyone trying to check dry cleaning off their to-do list.

You’ve probably wondered why dry cleaners aren’t open on Sundays -- the one day of the week most of us actually have time to pick up and drop off our clothes? There is actually some history behind how we got to this point (which we describe below).

At Rinse, we’ve created a customer experience that addresses all of the points of friction in traditional dry cleaning and have been serving customers on Sundays since we launched in 2013. This focus on the customer has made us the most convenient solution in the clothing care industry and a large reason our customers keep coming back.

Why Aren’t Dry Cleaners Open Sunday?

It seems counterintuitive that a business would be closed on a day when their customers most need their service, but there is actually a long history behind why dry cleaners are closed on Sundays.

Get your dry cleaning done any day of the week, including Sundays! Schedule a pickup with Rinse.

Sundays Off: The Legacy of Blue Laws

It’s long been a tradition for businesses to have reduced hours or close entirely on Sundays. The tradition is most prevalent in Western nations owing to their cultural roots in Christianity which holds Sunday as the Sabbath - a day of rest. Laws preventing work on Sundays in Western countries go as far back as the rule of Emperor Constantine.

In America, this tradition dates back to the 17th century when the Puritans implemented blue laws, which regulated the sale of alcohol and certain activities on Sundays. Puritan blue laws dictated the closure of stores and limited recreational activities so the community would observe Sunday as a religious day of rest and reflection.

Other than a handful of locations in the US, blue laws are essentially nonexistent today. Bergen, NJ is the only place in America that still legally requires retail shops to remain closed on Sunday.

Nevertheless, the spirit of the laws remain and many businesses and proprietors view Sunday as a day to relax at home and take a break from work. This leads to many customer-facing stores having reduced hours or no service on Sunday altogether.

Traditional Dry Cleaners tend to follow this approach as well. Many are very hard working during the week, like the majority of us, and during the weekend they want to take a break as well. Oftentimes for traditional dry cleaners, the people working in the shop are also the owners of the store, so they don’t always have the luxury of being able to hire and staff over the weekend, and there are opportunities to reduce overhead costs by operating on fewer days. Given all that, the vast majority of dry cleaners are closed on Sunday.

Why Rinse Is Open Sundays

At Rinse, our mission since the beginning has been to remove the friction from clothing care to give you time back in your day to take care of the things that really matter. For us, that means operating on a schedule that works best for our customers, providing high-quality cleaning you can always trust, and coming straight to your door to pick up and deliver your clothes.

Rinse offers both quality and convenience through our smart scheduling. We’ll pick up and deliver 7 days per week (yes, we’re a dry cleaner open on Sundays!) and always between 8pm and 10pm. With this schedule, our customers are able to fit laundry and dry cleaning into their daily routine.

Our predictable schedule allows us to devote the time needed to properly clean each of the garments we pick up. We offer Standard 3-Day turnaround, as well as optional Rush service so your clothes are quickly cleaned and delivered, ready for the next time you wear them.

The next time you’re looking for a dry cleaner that is open on Sunday, schedule a pickup with us and one of our friendly Valets will arrive at your door between 8pm and 10pm to pick up your dry cleaning!