D.O. Summers Cleaners presses on with extra sanitation during COVID-19

Well done to long-time GreenEarth Affiliate, D.O. Summers for their hard work that is featured in this story by Cleveland Jewish News.

Even though D.O. Summers Cleaners, a dry cleaning business with 12 locations in Northeast Ohio, was an essential business during Ohio’s stay-at-home order, company president Dustin Goldberg said that didn’t make it immune to the same issues many other industries were facing.

“A whole lot changed, specifically that business has not been great,” he said. “The new normal is that people have stopped going to work and dressing up, and there has been a significant decrease in life events and that has taken a toll on dry cleaning.”

Goldberg, who lives in Gates Mills and attends Temple Israel Ner Tamid in Mayfield Heights, said they have seen an uptick in more domestic business in household items like sheets and towels. Other than a slump in sales, Goldberg said many of the locations already promote social distancing and cleanliness guidelines.

“Eight out of our 12 locations are drive-thru and two of the other ones are locker-based, so they’re already traditionally non-contact,” he said. “Between those stores, we have adapted. The stores without those features have sneeze guards.”

Over the last few months, Goldberg said managers, assistant managers and district managers have been working full-time to provide the same-day service that “D.O. Summers prides itself in.”

“At the core level of our business, one thing came to light more recently that dry cleaning as a process deeply sanitizes garments,” he said. “Between the heat, fluids and solvents, it sanitizes. I think people were first looking at (dry cleaning) as a convenience or a luxury but now they’re looking at it as going above and beyond the home wash.”

See full story by Cleveland Jewish News here.

Photo courtesy of Cleveland Jewish News