BAY SHORE, N.Y. – Prestige Laundry, a family-owned and -operated commercial laundry that exclusively serves first-class, luxury hotels in the New York City area, recently underwent a $3 million renovation of machinery and utilities.
Located 50 miles east of New York, Prestige Laundry is a sister facility of Prestige Cleaners in Manhattan and shares the same management and customer service program.
Joe and Gina Cho entered the cleaning industry in Chicago, owning a drycleaning facility that specialized in fire restoration. After 10 years, they moved to New York and opened their second cleaners on Second Avenue. By 1994, they owned and operated three drycleaners in Manhattan.
Then Joe Cho’s first chance to service hotels surfaced. He began serving the Mayflower Hotel in 1996 and other accounts soon followed.
Wishing to distinguish Prestige from other companies, he began offering an express four-hour service option, which has now become standard in New York City. Ultimately, Prestige purchased Approved Laundry in 2005.
“We consider any guests in your hotel to be a customer of ours,” Cho says. “We aim to resolve any problems or complaints as soon as they arise. In order for us to be successful, we know that the hotels we work for need to be successful. Therefore, we always process and deliver your clothes in the shortest time needed without sacrificing the level of quality that is expected.”
Prestige Laundry employs 150 in processing 80,000 pounds of linen daily for 38 clients ranging in size from 40-room boutique hotels to 1,000-room properties in the Tri-State area. The previous laundry processed only 15,000 pounds daily using 60 employees.
Prestige Laundry operates around the clock, stopping only to perform maintenance. It launders all hotel linen: linen and terry for guest rooms, restaurants and fitness centers; employee uniforms; guest valet items; and drapes, curtains and even carpets.
Prestige outsources leather and fur goods and large rugs, but carefully monitors and controls their handling to ensure the same level of quality for its customers.
To cover the 100-mile round trip to New York, Prestige operates 19 delivery trucks. No matter what time, day or night, one of its laundry trucks can be found somewhere in Manhattan.
When it made the decision to upgrade its facility, Prestige Laundry chose Direct Machinery Sales Corp. of Hicksville, N.Y., to install the equipment, because of its reputation as a distributor and its relationship with manufacturer Pellerin Milnor Corp.
“The high-quality machinery; the factory; longtime, loyal employees; and the fact that it’s a family-run business all speak volumes for Pellerin Milnor,” explains Sang Cho, Prestige Laundry managing director. “If a machine has a hiccup or goes down, we know that Direct Machinery and Milnor will stand behind the problem and fix it.”
Direct Machinery’s proximity – roughly 19 miles away – also attracted Prestige Laundry to the distributor. Its ability to be on premises almost immediately if there is a problem was paramount to the commercial laundry.
On the production side, Prestige Laundry has an eight-module Milnor continuous-batch washer (CBW) linked to gas dryers and a single-stage press, complemented by Washex washer-extractors and Challenge dryers.
On the finishing side, Prestige utilizes Chicago Dryer Co. linen separators, spreader-feeders, ironers and folders.
Milnor’s computerized production management system is also installed in the facility.
The CBW’s water-reuse capabilities have cut the laundry’s consumption to 0.6 gallons of water per pound, compared to 4 gal/pound with the old laundry.
Pariser Industries supplies the laundry chemicals. Rewash is 6-7%, which Prestige acknowledges is higher than the national average but reflective of the level of quality that its customers demand.
Daily fuel use is 1,000 therms per pound of goods. Prestige uses natural gas for the dryers and boiler room. It recycles hot water and uses a water filtration system to maximize heat usage.
Direct Machinery’s Ron Hirsch says a production analysis illustrates Prestige’s ability to skillfully manage its work flow.
It took the laundry some time to manage the speed of incoming bins versus the speed of outgoing bins, says Sang Cho. To keep the flow steady, Prestige always has work staged for feeders.
“Our mission,” says Joe Cho, “is to couple first-class laundry and valet services with an unmatched level of personal attention from our entire team.”
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