Season’s Cleanings!???

From my days at Spic ‘n Span Cleaners in Seattle

I used this greeting for all of my customers (and to be clear, when I sold the business in 2002 I migrated it to my new employer, LeatherCare). Sadly neither business survived the pandemic. LeatherCare and Spic ‘n Span are a fond memory for me, my friends, customers and most of all a cadre of incredible team members at both companies.

I owe my dry cleaning chops to my father in law, Louis Ostroff and brother in law, Gerry Ostroff. Both welcomed me, a wayward advertising and marketing wonk, in 1981. Founded in 1943 by Lou Ostroff, it became a dry cleaning institution with numerous “call stores” around Seattle and beyond, but its flagship store on Dearborn Street in Seattle was a testament to dry cleaning excellence. Its sign, a reader board which needed to be changed frequently, bared the famous slogan “In by 10 dirty, out clean by 4:30”.

If the adage that businesses thrive on location, location and location, the coming of the “Dearborn curve” which connected I-90 with I-5 and diverted traffic around our store, we lost many customers. We sold the business to another family in 2002 who basically drove it into the ground. If you drive in the area you no doubt noticed that the building was boarded up while undergoing serious underground contaminated waste mitigation. Gerry sold the business a few months ago and we should see that building demolished in favor of lord knows what!

The timing of the sale of the business caused Steve Ritt, owner of another specialty cleaning business to hire me to conduct marketing and advertising programs. As dry cleaning was losing favor to wash and wear garments and leather garments were becoming out of vogue, we changed the business to include a very viable textile restoration company in which we served folks who had fires and floods and needed their household textiles. That division of the LeatherCare company was known as CRDN of Seattle and Western Washington. We served customers from Olympia north to Bellingham as well as the Olympic peninsula. When LeatherCare decided to stop its operations the CRDN division was merged with Bakkers Fine Cleaners and has successfully grown into a multifaceted restoration company owned by Mark Scott. Many of our employees went to work for Mark and through their training and growth in their skills have made this a viable operation.

That’s where Season’s Cleanings was born and continues to thrive even if only as a fond memory for our family.

In the meantime I’ll pass along the “regular” Happy Holidays with wishes for a healthy and peaceful new year. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, et al. I’m going to be thinking of new stories and thoughts to bring you in 2025 with the hope that we all can survive the new leadership in our country and all it entails.

My personal goal is to read more literature and less news, particularly on TV. It’s not that I’m not interested in the news of the day, only that to maintain some sort of equilibrium for my mind, body and soul I need to discipline myself to stay away from the lies and propaganda that spews out of the media. I’ve found SubStack to be a very healthy outlet for me to express my thoughts and to learn how others feel and deal with what Jewish folks call “mishigas” or craziness.

Warmest regards,

Dick Brody