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Meet the new Mr. Laundry by Corinne Ramey Every morning, surrounded by dryers, laundry carts and detergent boxes, Anthony Cisneros puts 20 quarters in his massage chair and plops down for a 15-minute massage. Whatever stress the day may bring – on a recent morning, a fight over dryers resulted in one woman pelting another with detergent – that massage helps make everything better, he said. Cisneros, 36, is the new owner of Mr. Laundry on W. 168th Street. Although he's had experience owning small businesses in the past, this is his first foray into suds and dryer sheets. In his quest to run a better-than-average neighborhood laundromat, Cisneros has encountered the joys and challenges of the laundry business and being his own boss.
In August, Cisneros purchased the laundromat from its previous owners, Hasidic Jews who felt they’d be more successful if the store could open on Friday evenings and all day Saturday, their traditional Sabbath days.  Cisneros spruced up the laundromat with accouterments like television, air conditioning, vending machines, the massage chair and soon-to-be-installed WiFi. He made sure that everything was as clean as possible. Then he rolled out his big marketing plan: to entreat customers with the promise of free dryers for a limited time. He wallpapered the neighborhood with advertisements for the promotion, but the response was not what he expected.
“That first month was horrible,” said Cisneros. “I now understand why free is an evil word, because people abuse anything free.” Customers would come in and want eight free dryers, despite only using three washers. He didn't attract many new clients, and discontinued the promotion on Sept. 1. Cisneros started his career as a small-business owner with two pizzerias on the campus of Arizona State University, where he went to college. He'd arrive at the restaurants at 9:30 a.m. to prepare the cheese and dough, and wouldn't leave until 4 a.m. “You'd think in the pizza business you'd gain weight, but I was so stressed out that I was down to 150 [pounds],” said Cisneros, who now weighs a healthy 188 pounds. He eventually got tired of the grueling days and his student employees, who he said spent much of their time either hung over or texting on their cell phones. The Brooklyn native then moved back to New York and started waiting tables and bartending. After four years of working for others, he was ready to start working for himself again. “When you own your own business, nobody cares about it as much as you do,” he said. The most challenging part of the laundry business, besides getting up at 5 a.m., is keeping everybody happy, said Cisneros. For example, customers kept complaining that he was “cheap with the water,” he said, because small washers typically use 26 gallons and his only use 15. He has repeatedly had to explain that the machines are designed that way in order to be more environmentally friendly. But overall, he is seeing more happy customers trickle in. “It's slowly growing, although not as fast as I'd like,” he said. On slow days, he takes a walk by the competition to see what they’re up to. “They’re all really nice guys,” he said. Eventually, Cisneros hopes to turn his laundromat into a franchise, and own three stores within the next two years. “Then I can kick back and play with my dog,” he said. The Manhattan Times is the bilingual newspaper of Washington Heights and Inwood.
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