Laundromat brings city much-needed service

Those wanting to wash laundry will not have to travel out of town any more as a new laundromat is now up and running in Comanche.

Terral Rather officially opened his business last week and the Comanche Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting for him on Tuesday on the 400 block of Rodeo Drive across from Sonic.

“I’ve said it for years that Comanche needed a laundromat, auto parts store and a hardware store, but no one ever does anything,” Rather said. “I had some money to put towards it and started looking for a building. I caught the owners of the building and asked them about the apartment and they were excited about it.”

It was a long process that started in late August. Securing the financing took several weeks and then meeting city and gas company requirements took time as well.

“The toughest part has been getting the logistics done between the city and gas company,” Rather said.

Rather is friends with the owners of the laundromat in Waurika and he was able to familiarize himself with their operation before starting his own.

Currently, the laundromat has six sets of washers and dryers (including two coming later this week) and Rather has plans to expand that number to as high as 14 as money comes in for the business. An ATM is also on the way and he is working on the change machine. There are plans for drink and snack machines.

Having large capacity washers and dryers is a goal for the future.

“They’re really expensive,” Rather said. “I can buy drink and snack machines and have money left over for the price of a large load washer.”

The laundromat will be open 24 hours, 7 days a week.

“It will allow people who do shift work to use them and my number is up in a couple of different places in case there are any problems,” Rather said. “I still work for Pioneer so I might not get to any issues until later in the day, but I’ll get it done.”