National Clothesline

Looking at the family’s Miami business now, though, it’s hard to imagine that it ever stumbled. After all, Rey’s Cleaners has three retail locations including a 32,000 sq. ft. facility with over 70 employees. Angel poured close to $2 million into the project which culminated

last June.

“I don’t think there is another facility in Florida that offers the comfort that this facility offers,” Angel said. “We have spot cooling at every single station. We have three spotting boards. We have Metal Progetti conveyors — a sorting conveyor and a distribution conveyor. People don’t have to move from their locations to get their work in or out. We have lots of room — 16,000 sq. ft. of production area alone. It is a very comfortable place to work.”

Comfort is important, especially since Rey’s Cleaners pays incentives to its employees who aim for perfection.

“We demand a lot of quality. They don’t have to produce a lot of pieces,” Angel explained. “Our production, for example, for our linen and cotton presser is ten pieces an hour. That’s all we demand. Our production from a jacket presser is 100 pieces a day. For a silk presser, it’s 250 pieces a day. We’re very strict in our inspections. They need to produce a good garment because they are only paid on the product when they pass inspection.”

Clearly, the system has worked well. The employee turnover rate is low and customers willingly pay 40 to 50% higher than Rey’s closest competitor. Despite the success, however, Angel does not believe in feeling content.

“There is always room for improvement,” he said. “One of the things that I find in this industry is that there’s a lot of people out there who feel that they don’t need to learn any more. That’s when they stop growing.”

For the Suarez family, growing the family business has always been the primary goal. In the early 1960s in Cuba, Angel’s father, Felix, hoped his refrigerator manufacturing plant — the only one in Havana — would turn into something big. Unfortunately, the timing was off.

“It was a brand new plant,” Angel recalled. “When it was taken over by [Fidel] Castro, refrigerators were just starting to come out of the production line. It would have been a huge business if Castro had not come into the country. My parents were practically thrown out of Cuba in 1961. Everything they owned was taken away.”

The elder Suarez was held back in Cuba by the government for a few months while Angel’s mother, Raquel, came to Miami with the children. The next few months were quite difficult, but the family held on to the belief that they would be able to return to their native country soon.

“In the beginning, nobody thought the Cuba situation was going to last this long,” Angel said. “We had the Bay of Pigs’ invasions and that was going to liberate Cuba, definitely. So, nobody wanted to plant roots. It’s been 45 years now and we’re still in the same boat.”

When Angel’s father reunited with his family, they moved to Puerto Rico where he started over by picking up refrigerators and air conditioning units that had been thrown away. He would refurbish them back into good working order and then resell them.

It wasn’t long before the Suarez family was back in business. Felix then ventured into selling appliances and furniture while Angel, only nine, worked alongside him.

Following his parents’ divorce in the late 1960s, Angel lived with his mother in Miami, but still worked for his father, who had added business offices there. However, during the recession of 1973, Felix went bankrupt, once again losing everything he had built.

Meanwhile, Angel’s mother began a part-time job as counter help for a drycleaning plant. Over the next few years she worked her way up to a managing position. When the man who gave Raquel her first job sold the business to a new owner, she began considering opening her own plant. In 1978, she got her wish thanks to an odd twist of fate.

“One day I found a classified ad where they were selling a drycleaning store in Liberty City. I called her and let her know,” Angel said. “When she got there, she realized that the guy who was selling the store was the same guy who hired her on her first day. He made it possible for her to buy the store because he already knew her.”

As Angel got older, he spent his early adult years working in retail furniture. Having worked in the field for so long, he had more experience than most people his age. While his father built up another business — mattress manufacturing — Angel had an epiphany.

“The catalyst to push me out of furniture was that you had all of this money stuck in the warehouse, and if trends or fashions changed, you were stuck with all of it,” he said. “You had to sell it at cost or almost cost.”

In 1981, he invested in a business that imported checkwriting machines from Japan, competing directly against the big company PayMaster, but it was a tough year for Angel. Not only did his father pass away, but he became virtually penniless when his business investment didn’t pan out.

Raquel offered her son a job at her Quality Cleaners plant, lifting him out of his depression. He instantly loved drycleaning.

“I liked that it didn’t have inventory and that if you did a good job, the customers would come back the next week and bring you more work,” he laughed. “It was a no-brainer.”

In 1983, the family’s guardian angel showed up again when Raquel’s banker informed her that one of his drycleaning clients was retiring. As it turned out, the man was a father of a classmate of Angel and the plant was Rey’s Cleaners.

“When I was in high school, he needed some help with his deliveries and asked whether I would be able to do them that day, and I did,” he recalled. “I actually worked in the store one day years ago. Little did I know, I was going to be spending the rest of my life in it.”

Rey’s Cleaners had long fostered a reputation for being the best cleaners in town, so the Suarez family wished to continue the tradition, improving upon it when possible. One way Angel made that happen was by joining several cost groups in the industry, even though the decision almost came too late.

“I remember when we just paid off the original note on Rey’s Cleaners,” he said. “We were going through some really bad cash flow moments then. I remember a cousin of mine came to the store to visit me. I was bogged down with all of these problems and he looked at me and said, ‘After hearing everything you say Angel, I think you’re bankrupt and don’t even know it’.”

Already, Angel had been involved in the industry, taking courses from NCA and joining its board of directors. Now, he felt it was time to take it to the next level. That decision saved the business.

“My first cost group was with Al Robson,” he said. “After that, I’ve been in several other cost groups. I’ve spent some time with Methods For Management and I’ve been with Ed D’Elicio a long time. I got involved with IFI, as well. I went to every meeting I could and I talked to the people who knew more than I did.”

One of Rey’s Cleaners greatest strengths is the family unit that provides its foundation. Angel’s wife, Maria, and their three children — Frankie, Angel D. and Cristina — are all currently working for the company, which has expanded over the years to encompass everything from leathers to restoration to wedding gowns.

“We don’t say no to anything,” Angel said. “That way, if a customer comes in with a garment, they don’t have to ask if we can do it. There is nothing we cannot do.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that Angel believes there is nothing left for him and his staff to learn. He knows that in order to be the best, you have to constantly look for ways to improve.

It’s that attitude that prompted him, Ed D’Elicio, Jeff Davidson (Holly Cleaners) and Mike Astorino (Fabricare Cleaners) to form America’s Best Cleaners.

“America’s Best Cleaners is a group of drycleaners who thrive and strive to do better work and give better quality than anybody else,” Angel explained. “They are leaders in their respective markets. By leaders, I mean — and we’ve done this — when you call a retail store and ask them who would you recommend as a drycleaner, the names of these people would show up nine out of ten times.”

Currently, ABC is made up of 25 cleaners from the U.S. and one international affiliate from Paris, France. In time, Angel hopes that number will increase to 55 or 60, but no more. The idea is to select the cream of the cleaning crop, so only those who meet the group’s stringent criteria (see www.americasbestcleaners.com) will even be considered for membership.

“We have a lot of people interested in joining our group,” Angel noted. “We have standards, and we also have a certification program. In order to be part of the group, you have to be certified. We’re going to do certification courses throughout the year, which everybody has to attend and pass.”

Being one of America’s Best Cleaners is a lot of work, but Angel anticipates things becoming easier down the road. “The last quarter was just incredible and the first quarter of this year is looking good,” he said. “Now, my kids want to retire me. I’m anxiously awaiting the day.”