Duds ‘n Suds

Proper care was not given to a linen jacket. When I dropped it off I said this is linen and please be careful with it. They burned the whole thing– every seam with an iron. They charge twice as much for dry cleaning as everyone else. They did do a good job on regular laundry however… In total I’m in the hole about $ 150 + grief from my wife. For Dry cleaning and specialty items take them somewhere else.

I’ve been coming here for almost 2 years. I go to school at a University about 1.5 hours away, and since I live alone back in St. Louis my family didn’t feel it was necessary to buy a new dryer when it went out. So I go here everytime I’m doing laundry over breaks.
It’s a good place. My first impression was that it’s definitely a run down hole. But I got used to it. Most people who go there are friendly. The employees are seniors, so their company has a more homey feel to it.
Aside from the fact that it is outdated, it’s an overall good place. But as a college student, I expected it to be on the same level of the laundromats on my campus, and it is.

I drive here instead of using my own apartment’s laundromat because it’s cheaper, the staff is great, and there’s free wifi.
I come during weekdays to avoid regular traffic, so I usually only share the whole laundromat with one or two other customers and I never have to wait. The attendant, Gayle, is here every day and of the 6 or 7 times I’ve come so far, she has helped me with something every single time.
If the coin machine is stuck, she stops what she is doing to reboot it or find another way to get me quarters.
She knows I come in with my comforter every time, so when she sees me at the door now she immediately checks the biggest washer in the back to let me know if it’s empty.
She has even suggested when to use warm versus cold (I’m a college student living too far away from mom…). Customer service is definitely worth 5 stars. Thanks Gayle!
The machines are typical of a laundromat– nothing fancy. They’re a little outdated but they get my clothes washed and dried, so I’m happy. Five stars for a reliable laundromat.

Imagine a wife, insisting you ride along to the coin op laundry because the dryer is broken at home. She is trying to make it interesting, so she offers to go to the place that serves beer. Immediately my mind goes to some fancy, high tech laundry with a small bar, flat screens (she did say there was a flat screen TV) and a hope that we can be in and out in just under 2 hours.
Instead, I walk into Duds ‘n Suds. It’s your usual coin op laundry with aged tile floors, broken down machines, a cluttered waiting area with a large box TV (with a «flat» screen), a video game section that is inaccessible thanks to three large boxes of linens waiting for their owners to pick up from drop off service. And the beer, we won’t even speak about the beer, as I was afraid to try it. The appearance of the «bar» area was something you might expect out of a college dorm room, but not as fancy. The poster board menu and hand written signs really added to my assumption that the beer was going to be about as delightful as a colon cleanse using razor blades and ammonia. I stayed away.
So first impressions aside, it’s all about how good the appliances work, right? Well, first off, we had a 30 minute delay on 1 of the 3 washers we used, as it kept stopping and wouldn’t finish the wash cycle. It never did get into the spin cycle, so we had to loft dripping wet clothes into a dryer. Then the dryer didn’t work. After two full 30 minute cycles the clothes were still wet all the way through. We switched dryers but at this point we had been there 2 hours and counting.
Then there was everything else.
As I sat in the waiting area, watching Terminator 2 on the «flat screen,» I heard a loud noise around the corner behind me. Several customers jumped and immediately looked extremely concerned. As I peaked around the corner, a large air conditioning unit that was suspended by two bars from the ceiling had fallen between the bars, not all the way to the floor, but enough to have swung down and cracked a customer in the head. The attendant got on the phone with the owner, but it was a good hour or so before he ever showed up. And of course, it was Sunday so his repair guy wasn’t going to be able to make it out to fix it.
After this, it just felt like the place was falling apart. One guy opened the detergent door on the washer right by my chair, and the door went flying off. Someone else was having trouble with another dryer. The detergent machine wouldn’t dispense boxes of detergent to another customer. Then the change machine wouldn’t give out change to someone. My wife bought a soda from the soda machine and wound up with two sodas (BONUS!) thanks to that machine not working properly. Another washer went down shortly after all of that.
Honestly, even without the glitz and glamor of the establishment I had imagined, I could have given this place a decent rating with the right amount of TLC and working machines. But everything was breaking. I was one power cord away from being witness to a man being crushed to death by an AC unit. My 3 loads of laundry ended up taking almost 3 hours to complete. Nothing added up for Duds ‘n Suds.
My recommendation, washboard and a hair dryer are a better option than this place.

What I look for in a dry cleaners is a place where I can expect my shirt/​suit/​pants to get well cleaned, be returned at a reliable time point at a fair price.
Unfortunately, after 6 months Suds and Duds did not meet these expectations. Although they offer a fair price, on numerous occasions my clothing was not ready on the day they confirmed. They always had some excuse and never once offered some type of discount for keeping clothes up to a week longer than stated. I did not think that my shirts were well cleaned but kept returning due to the proximity and hope things would improve. On one occasion, they lost a nice pair of dress slacks but then denied all accountability even though they could not figure out what my extra garment was on my receipt. I would forewarn anyone to using this establishment.

andrew W sums it up!
I don’t like my customers vibe for sure… the gentleman cleaning… well I would hire him to clean my kitchen! That ladies and gents is a compliment.

Got the job done and the staff was super entertaining. Not in a «we love our customers» kind of way, but in the «I hate customers kind of way» which is sometimes equally as fun.
Never seen someone dusting the ceiling fans… anywhere, and certainly not at a dumpy laundromat. So that was cool and a vote of confidence for their cleanliness. Bathroom was very respectable as well.

I have ALWAYS loved Duds ‘n Suds I first ran across one when I was living in was going to school in Omaha. For me, any place that had a beer tap and some video games was pretty nifty.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not really an arcade-​like, full-​bar atmosphere like Dave & Busters. It’s more like if your family donated their used furniture and TV to a Goodwill, and a laundromat decided to buy it. It’s comfortable, but I don’t really hang out there when I used to do my laundry there.
I’ve always wanted to, but I never had a beer there either. Anytime I’ve been there, it didn’t look like they were serving, but then again, I never asked.
They have a bunch of machines, and I never had to wait to use one. There was a nice collection of double, triple, and quadruple-​sized washers, as well as some larger dryers. The prices were standard, and it was nice to know that there is someone on staff there to help out.