Finding a good dryer cleaner in the city is like meeting the unicorn of your laundry dreams. When I began my dry-clean-only journey, I used a delivery service that would come to my doorstep, collect my laundry, dry-clean for me, and then return my items when I called. Little did I know that their prices were on par with, if not cheaper than the local dry cleaner, and that this was my dry-cleaner unicorn!
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of calling them for pick-up one time, and I missed the appointment. My phone was on silent. And so, I think I’ve been blacklisted ever since.
After this mishap, I started to use a different dry cleaner in my neighborhood. Not only do the service and prices not impress, but I also have to go to the dry cleaner myself (I know, what a hard life). What made me stick with them was the fact that they were open on the weekends, and were within easy walking distance of the condo.
Unfortunately, COVID has not been kind to small businesses in the downtown core. A lot of the shops on Queen Street have been boarded up since March, and my go-to dry cleaner was no exception. In desperation, I tried calling my unicorn dry-cleaner using a different number, but was told that they were not picking up “new business” at the moment.
With my options dwindling, I turned to Yelp. Should I try the dry cleaner that’s located outside of my usual range, rated only two out of five stars, from a total of four customers? I looked at the reviews for some other places, but they weren’t so hot either. Now I know that random online reviews need to be taken with a grain of salt, but I could not discount them entirely either. After all, I was going to entrust my stuff to a vendor that could ruin it, lose it, or charge me an arm and a leg. I was proceeding at my own risk!
Based on these internal thoughts, I decided against taking a chance on JC Mart. This place was an interesting combination of corner store, sushi bar, and dry cleaner all in one. One review said that their dry cleaning came out smelling like sushi. Um, chemicals in my sushi, and sushi in my dry cleaning – sounds really tempting, but I am going to pass on the offer this time.
And so, the dry cleaning that I meant to have done before the lock down began is still sitting in the closet. Instead, I’ve been living mostly in cow and ice cream pajamas for the last three months. It turns out that there wasn’t much of a rush to get my dry cleaning done after all, as I’m not doing many video calls for work (Skype audio and phone calls are my friends). No point suiting up for my fake plant and the odd neighbor spying into the home office!