When Rick Bugdanowitz was 17 years old, he hoped to earn a baseball scholarship
in order to attend the University of Arizona. However, one day during summer
league, his father showed up.
The elder Bugdanowitz (Jack) was a no-nonsense hard worker who had been in the
drycleaning industry since the Great Depression and had started
Dependable Cleaners in Denver, CO, with Rick’s grandfather, Abraham, a decade later. He preferred to work around the clock,
so it was a strange sight for Rick to see him coming for a visit on the
baseball diamond.
“It was very unusual for
him to come to a game, let alone practice, so I went over to the car and said, ‘Dad, what are you doing here?’” Rick recalled.
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“He said, ‘You’re either going to work or you’re going to play and I need you to work. I want you to quit’.”
Rick was devastated. It was a tough choice. He had already logged in more than
his fair share of hours at Dependable. In fact, his father first put him to
work when he was nine.
“He put me in the back, making hangers,” he said. “In those days, they fed you the struts in two boxes, one had the tubes and one
had the wire. He would pay me practically nothing, but he wanted me to learn
the cleaning business. I wasn
’t pleased about it. All of my friends were playing during spring and summer
vacation, but he had me working.
”
After his father’s ultimatum, Rick went straight to the coach and hung up his glove. At that
point, there was no question he
’d be a drycleaner for life.
Looking back at his formative years, Rick is grateful that he learned so much
about the industry from his parents.
His father taught him about all aspects of production while his mother, Esther,
preached consistent quality.
“She was what separated Dependable from the rest of the cleaners in town,” he said. “She made sure everything was as perfect as it could be. She was a real pistol.
She was five feet tall, blonde, and she knew the business inside and out.
”
The experience Rick received from his parents was even more valuable than his
education at U of A. So, when he returned to Denver, he was ready to put that
knowledge to work.
First though, he married his high school sweetheart, Sheila, in 1964. She had
worked as a counter girl at Dependable during high school. Then, he asked his
father what he was going to pay him for working full time.
“He said to me, ‘I’ll tell you what. If I pay you what you think you’re worth, I’ll go broke. And, if I pay you what you’re really worth, you’ll starve’,” Rick said. “I’ll never forget that.”
Rick did not get to enjoy his newlywed status or his job at Dependable too long
before he was drafted in 1964. He spent the next two years in the National
Guard, but was called home after his father had a heart attack.
“They released me so I could run the business because we had so many employees,” he explained.
By that time, Dependable had become quite large. In 1958, President Eisenhower
had built a shopping center in Denver and they wanted Rick
’s father to put a store in it. He opted to install a package plant, the first of
its kind in the city. The venture proved successful, so the family continued to
add more, increasing the scope of the business considerably.
Rick’s role in the company evolved to include everything. As he puts it, he worked
approximately a
“gazillion” hours a week.
“I started coming in at 2 o’clock in the morning, working with the drycleaner in this giant cleaning room
with two 300-lb. Washex machines,
” he laughed. “I worked in the shirt laundry, marking in shirts and changing pads. I worked at
all the package plants. I had to learn every single thing there was to learn
about the drycleaning business. It
’s a good philosophy. If you don’t know what your employees know, then they can figure that out in a real hurry.”
In 1968, Rick’s sister’s husband joined the business, and, six years later, the two invested in a large
liquor company called Harry Hoffman
’s.
“I don’t know what possessed us, but we wanted to go into the liquor business,” he said. “I was running it and he was running Dependable. We mutually agreed that we
should split up. I sold him my interest in Dependable and I kept the liquor
business. That was in 1978. It was probably the biggest mistake I ever made in
my entire life.
”
For the next few years, things went very poorly for Rick. Basically, every
business venture he attempted turned to disaster.
“I wasn’t exactly flying,” he noted. “One of the reasons it went bad is I invested a lot of money into a condominium
project with my then-best-friend. He embezzled most of the money and I lost my
investment, which was most of the money I had from the liquor store.
”
Rick had to start all over again, this time from scratch. He decided to find his
riches in
“rags,” albeit really nice ones. Going back to his drycleaning roots, he bought a Dependable Cleaners store with some “ratty equipment” from his cousin. It was an auspicious start, especially for an entrepreneur
with visions of starting the best quality cleaners in town.
Next, Rick’s son came up with a name: La Nouvelle (French for “The New”) Fine Cleaners. To back the fancy title, Rick hired the best presser in town,
along with a few high school students to work the counter.
Unfortunately, the plant failed to impress right away. Many walk-in customers
never returned.
“I had a couple of people walk in and try me once, but I gave them the bill and
they almost died,
” Rick laughed. “They’re used to paying $2.50 and I’m charging them $10, so they immediately quit.”
It was clear to Rick that business was not going to come to him. He would have
to go out and find it instead. With that in mind, he sought out the finest
women
’s clothing boutique in Denver.
Rick told the owner to send him the toughest dress he had. If he was impressed
with the final quality, then he could try La Nouvelle and recommend it to his
customers, as well.
“He sent me over a wedding dress — a sample wedding dress — that was so damned dirty you have no idea how filthy this dress was,” Rick said.
After a little magic, it came back looking brand new. The boutique owner was won
over. From there, Rick started securing relationships with other major
companies such as Sak
’s Fifth Avenue and Niemann Marcus.
He always made the same promise to every customer, no matter how large or small:
“I will never say to you that there’s a problem with the garment, the manufacturer, or you. I will take complete
responsibility for every garment that comes inside my store. It belongs to me
until I give it back to the customer in perfect condition. That
’s my guarantee.”
Such high standards set La Nouvelle apart from other Denver cleaners, which may
be why Rick got a strange phone call from one of his customers back in 1993. A
lady asked him to come out to her house immediately, but would not give him the
reason why.
When Rick showed up, he was introduced to a Monsignor who was researching Denver
cleaners to handle Pope John Paul II
’s vestments during his World Youth Day visit. They believed La Nouvelle was the
best plant. Honored, Rick accepted and offered to do the cleaning for free.
“I did have 24-hour guards here because there were some threats,” he said. “Believe it or not, there are some people who don’t like the Pope. I took his vestment home every night. I was scared to death
that something would happen to them.
”
After news leaked out that La Nouvelle cleaned for His Holiness, word-of-mouth
went through the roof for La Nouvelle.
Nowadays, the company caters to many of Denver’s elite, including Broncos’ Head Coach Mike Shanahan and Jerry Glauser, president of Glauser Mercedes.
Rick routinely charges as much as $450 for a wedding dress and $45 for a
designer suit, but his customers are happy to pay for the sterling quality.
The back of the plant is kept absolutely spotless, and Rick is quite proud of
his unparalleled standards. In fact, when he needed accreditation to join
America
’s Best Cleaners, the Hohenstein Institute ran a surprise inspection of his
operation.
“La Nouvelle received the highest score ever awarded by the Hohenstein Institute,” Rick beamed. “It will never be topped.”
Pursuing perfection is one of the reasons (along with the efforts of ace
publicist Kael Robinson) that Rick was asked to be on the ABC television show
The View in April of 2006.
Initially, they wanted him to remove stains live on the air using household
items. Rick was quite nervous at the prospect. It didn
’t help that he would be on after Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria, who had “21 people making her up, doing her hair and nails”. Rick only had his wife and Kael to help him.
However, at the eleventh hour (and after a shot of tequila), he was told that he
only had to explain how to remove the stains. Fortunately, the segment went
smoothly.
“I was with Meredith Vieira and Joy Behar. They were a kick. It’s all scripted, but after the first two minutes, they just threw the script
away. You try ad-libbing with two professionals,
” he laughed.
“It was six-and-a-half minutes and more damn fun that I’ve ever had in the business!”
