INDIANAPOLIS — The tongue-in-cheek teaser, “May We Tan Them Buns Hun,” on a roadside pylon sign was the first hint. Then there were the two dozen vehicles pulled up to this 7,500-square-foot goliath. Before stepping inside, I knew Laundry & Tan Connection wasn’t a run-of-the-mill coin-op. In a city famous for its speedway, this locally based chain hits on all cylinders with an oft-forgotten hybrid and a drive for family trade.
Loading your jeans for a hot wash and shedding your clothes for a warm glow is a tandem format seldom seen these days, but what really sets this operation apart from the pack is the pampering that moms, dads and kids receive.
TWO BUSINESSES SUIT EACH OTHER
I catch the Saturday afternoon crowd in high gear at the Mitthoeffer Road branch near Indy’s east beltway — one of 11 Laundry & Tan Connections that dot the metropolis.
Here, parents roll overstuffed carts effortlessly through automatic doors and traverse the spacious aisles on their way to the dozens of big-load-dominant washers on offer. Widescreen TVs and amusement games add electricity to the air and give the place a good vibe. Strategically placed compact booths serve double-duty as an open invitation for families to linger while helping free up the high-demand folding tables.
Noticeably absent are kids underfoot. You won’t find them monkeying with touch pads and door handles, but instead scurrying around the 800-square-foot glass front-enclosed playground replete with a mini-theater and a jungle gym of tunnels and tube slides.
“Our business is centered around families,” explains owner Michael Gilley. “I want people to come to our store who have 10 kids because they have more laundry. That has been our focus.”
Gilley’s boyish looks belie his 27 years in the industry. The string of coin-ops and tanning hybrids — with footprints ranging between 3,000 and 8,000 square feet — extend beyond greater Indianapolis to Kentucky outposts, including four in Louisville and one in Lexington.
The man behind the tan wasn’t the first to put washers, dryers and beds under one roof, but he certainly took it to a new level. Gilley credits a trailblazing local operator, who married self-service laundry, sunless tanning and hot-tubbing, for his inspiration. Taking a cue from the pioneer, but dropping the tubs, the savvy entrepreneur survived some turbulent times and has amassed a chain of nine combo wash-tan venues with five to 20 tanning units, a dedicated salon with 42 beds, and five laundry-only facilities.
“The coin laundry and tanning business are identical in the fact you buy capital equipment and rent time on it,” the owner explains. “The two complement each other very, very well.”
When he debuted his round-the-clock 7,400-square-foot flagship on West 10th Street in 1997, the tanning biz had already been heating up for well over a decade.
“Everyone was tanning. A moron could make money in the tanning business,” Gilley states. “The barrier to entry was not very high.”
The street-smart operator needed a competitive edge to get bods on beds and a coin-op’s built-in extended hours fit the bill.
“Our concept was to be open longer, offer better equipment at a fair price, and the people will come — that’s exactly what happened,” he says. “The main philosophy of the business has never changed and that is figuring out what the customers’ wants and needs are and taking care of it without exception.
“I don’t care if it costs me money. I don’t care if I lose money. Whatever it takes to make the customer happy is what we’re going to do.”
TANNING SURVIVES TAXES, REGULATION
Gilley’s knack for laying out and executing the right format soon put him on “speed dial” for laundry owners intrigued by a tanning component. Consulting soon led to actively providing beds; these days, his supply arm is the third largest distributor for tanning equipment and lotions in the country, serving coin-ops, fitness clubs and dedicated salons, he notes.
An ambitious Gilley picked up his first laundry as a teenager while rehabbing dilapidated rental houses. The small, 800-square-foot, shotgun-style store was supposed to be his ticket to absentee management.
“I thought this would be great. I can go in, fix all the equipment, and I’ll come by once a week to pick up the money,” he smiles. “It didn’t quite work out that way.”
The now-43-year-old’s most recent build-out was $1.3 million — a far cry from the $5,000 he plunked down for that first project. His payroll numbers 150 employees, including managers to help oversee the two-state operation. He reports that revenues at a few locations are split 50/50 between laundry and tanning, but typically come in around 80/20.
While seasonality of bed demand and the largely female clientele base hasn’t changed over the years, a lot has. Today, it’s more middle-aged patrons walking in who “like to look great and feel great, and like the warmth of the tanning in the winter time,” the veteran shares. “The days of having a bunch of high school kids lined up the two weeks before prom doesn’t happen anymore. Now all those kids — because the government has regulated the industry — will spray-tan.”
Like others, the one-two punch of the Great Recession and government policy took its toll on Gilley’s tanning trade, with the former hitting his coin-ops as well.
“I had customers that told me we don’t have any money, we’re washing our clothes in the bathtub. It was that bad,” he recalls.
And while the weakened economy flushed out tanning competitors, it was a series of blows from the government that turned off a lot of lights on beds, beginning with a 10% federal excise tax imposed as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, followed by a “Call to Action” by the U.S. Surgeon General and a report from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention on the health effects of the sunless practice. In Indiana, UV tanning for anyone under 16 was banned in 2014.
“The previous administration had a war on the tanning industry for eight years. They haven’t collected one-third of what they thought they were going to raise and they’ve closed 50% of the tanning salons across the country,” Gilley says.
To retain clientele and build repeat business, Laundry & Tan Connection promoted its non-UV instant spray tanning option, as well as loyalty programs with “frequent visitor” package pricing and a “V.I.P. Premiere Club Membership” pass.
The operator remains confident the tan tax will be repealed under the new administration in Washington and sees brighter days ahead.
“I think there’s going to be a better opportunity, especially for combination stores, because there’s probably a lot of niches that are underserved.”
In Thursday's conclusion: Maintaining separate identities
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