Get Rich Quick Scheme #432 – The Bar Laundromat

>> I wrote this post in April 2013 and somehow didn’t publish it. Seize the day! Today. For publishing a blog from another time… A simpler time. 

I stumbled upon some notes from 2005 the other day. Notes just 8 years old, yet they transported me to another place, another time.

I had just started this blog. I was working as a temp doing odd jobs. And I was dreaming.

A lot.

One of my dreams was to own a Bar/Laundromat. The slash was a key ingredient; when discussing the plans with friends it was always pronounced “the-bar-slash-laundromat.” Never just “bar-landromat.” The Bar-slash-Laundromat.

You see, a Bar/Laundromat was the perfect get rich quick scheme from my perspective. I frequented laundromats. And I had the experience of choosing laundromats near bars. I’d put my laundry in, set a timer, and get a whiskey. When the timer went off, I’d run back, change it and go back to my whiskey. It was a good life, if it’s possible to think that life is good while one is doing laundry at laundromat.

I studied laundromats. I considered the start up capital (x number of washing machines times $y) and the ongoing costs. Someone needs to go in and clean. Oh and collect the money! That was going to be my job. One could get funding for laundromats if one put them in lower income neighborhoods that didn’t have any. That was one avenue.

But that wasn’t my dream. No, my dream was to be able to wash my clothes and get a beer at the same time.

Someone told me about Brainwash, the Bar/Laundromat in the city. We went to see a show there. It was inspiring. Here was someone making it! Making it! With a bar/laundromat!

I took it one step further. My bar/laundromat was to also be a coffee shop. Then it’s making money every minute of every hour (save the time when normal people are sleeping). From six to four it would sell coffee; and then from four to two booze! Only four unprofitable hours in every day.

I brainstormed names.

  • The Spin Cycle
  • The Cleaners
  • Scrubbing Trouble
  • Sudz
  • The Soak

They weren’t very good.

A friend points out, “How is running two small businesses a get rich quick scheme???”

So true, Zach. So true. And perhaps why nothing ever came of this particular daydream.

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