Vashon Laundry opening this month

The business promises the return of commercial laundromat services for islanders

By Alex Bruell • September 6, 2023 1:30 am
Dennis Morrow, a Port Orchard resident, is one of the co-owners of Vashon Laundry - pictured here next to some of the new washers at the business (Alex Bruell / The Beachcomber Photo).
Dennis Morrow, a Port Orchard resident, is one of the co-owners of Vashon Laundry - pictured here next to some of the new washers at the business (Alex Bruell / The Beachcomber Photo).

Vashon is about to have a laundromat again — in fact, the appropriately titled Vashon Laundry may be open by the time you’re reading this.

Operated by co-owners Mel Sherbourne and Dennis Morrow, Vashon Laundry opens this month at 17318 Vashon Hwy SW, the site of the former Suds Laundromat.

It will be open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, Morrow said. The space includes a waiting room with a TV and Wi-Fi.

Vashon Laundry is seeking to hire around three or four employees at the moment. Morrow, who lives in Port Orchard, said he plans to eventually visit the business two to three times per week while the employees run the show on a daily basis.

This won’t be the first, or second time a laundromat has opened at the property.

The former Suds Laundromat closed last year. Rebecca Parks, the operator of Suds, announced in May last year that the laundromat was headed toward closing due to the landlord’s intention to sell the property.

The property was on the market last fall for sale, Morrow said. But Sherbourne ultimately decided to fix it up and re-open it as a laundromat, he said.

“We had it on the market for a while,” Morrow said. “We had offers, but nothing really fit.”

Re-opening the property meant remodeling the interior, updating the electrical and plumbing and making other improvements to the building, Morrow said.

All told, he estimated they’ve spent about a quarter of a million dollars getting the place ready — about $200,000 of that spent on the new machines and another $50,000 on remodeling.

“We’ve been working on it for a while — probably six, seven months of actual construction,” Morrow said.

The machines — 10 dryers and 10 washers — are “brand new,” he said. They will take both coins and credit or debit cards.

The 20-pound washers, of which the laundromat has five, cost $3 for a load. The three 40-pound washers will cost $6 per load, and the remaining two 60-pound washers are $8. The dryers cost 25 cents per minute run. In other words, that’s about $5 for 20 minutes.

Vashon Laundry will not yet offer dry cleaning, though that’s something Morrow and Sherbourne are discussing for the future.

The building was constructed in 1947, according to property records. The property — bought in 1985 by islander Joy Humphreys, who long operated it as a laundromat and dry cleaning business — was purchased in 2015 by Multi Business LLC, a business associated with Michael Parks, Rebecca’s husband, Douglas Sudduth, her son, and Alec Sudduth, for $110,000.

In August of 2021, the building changed hands again, this time with a deed of foreclosure, transferring the property to Oregon-based Sherbourne Investments, Inc., a company directed by Mel Sherbourne.

It’s now been more than a year since Vashon had a commercial laundromat open, and Morrow said he’s heard from folks excited to see the business open.

“People pop in,” he said during an interview on Aug. 30. “I had a lady pop in this morning and ask, ‘When are you going to open?’ Everybody seems happy to hear it’s coming.”