At first glance, the large pink-and-white building featuring two adorable
puppies right over the words
“Milt & Edie’s” might look more like a Burbank boutique than a drycleaning plant.
Those who take a closer look and pay attention day after day will notice
something remarkable about the business: it never closes.
Not only is it open 24 hours a day, it is open 365 days a year (366 days on leap
years). The company has been working around the clock since the beginning of
February of this year.
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“People now walk in at one-, two-, three o’clock in the morning and they don’t even ask why we’re open,” he said. “We don’t do anymore production after like 8 p.m. As far as pressing and cleaning go, we
stop there. But, tailors will stay there until 11 p.m. usually. We have about
three people working from about eleven o
’clock at night to five o’clock in the morning.”
While the round-the-clock service adds unparalleled convenience for his
clientele, Milt initially started it for a different reason.
“The only reason we stayed open is we were having trouble getting the marking
out, the tagging of the clothes and what-have-you,
” he said.
“They were so busy at the front counter that they couldn’t have time to mark. So, we decided to stay open and try it. It’s just amazing how many people come in.”
Like his business, Milt is always receptive to talk, but since he always has a
lot to do, he prefers to say things only once.
He hasn’t slowed down since he began cleaning over 60 years ago when he worked at his
father
’s business, Hollyway Laundry & Dry Cleaners, in Echo Park.
“I was raised in the industry,” he said. “My parents had a small hand laundry in Brooklyn, New York. I was delivering wet
wash bundles to customers in apartment houses in a three-wheel push cart in the
early-to-mid 1940s.
”
In time, the Chortkoff family opted to head west and continued drycleaning on
the opposite side of the country.
“Our family moved to Los Angeles in 1946 and I worked my way through junior
college delivering laundry and cleaning from 1946 to 1948. Since then, I
’ve been in and out of the cleaning and laundry business — most of the time in.”
One of the things Milt likes about cleaning is the diversity of its members.
“I enjoy this industry because almost all of the plants I have visited — or worked at — consist of a ‘melting pot’ of nationalities. In our present plant, we have 11 different nationalities — speaking 14 different languages.”
When people from different backgrounds work together for a common goal, it is a
reminder of why his parents fled to the United States in the first place.
“My parents ran away from their country of birth due to religious and economic
persecution,
” he recalled. “We live in the greatest country in the world and we afford all races, religions,
and nationalities a chance to live in peace and to earn a living according to
their abilities.
”
Throughout his career in the industry, Milt is proud of many of his
accomplishments.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he helped increase business income from
$1,000 per week to $10,000 per week. The plant itself was only about 2,000
square feet in size.
Around the late 1970s, he built a new 5,000-square-foot location from scratch
that hit the $40,000-per-week mark.
A lot of the success has come from training his staff, something he considers to
be one of the biggest obstacles facing the industry today.
“I feel that the greatest challenge we have in the industry is training our
employees to produce quality work and delivering it to our customers
— on time — with a smile,” he said.
Regardless of how difficult it might be, Milt clearly has been a good trainer,
and perhaps a better boss. The company
’s web site proudly exclaims: “We have more than 500 years experience combined in cleaning, laundry and
tailoring.
”
While nobody else on his staff can boast over six decades in the industry like
Milt, many are not too far behind. Edie has been in drycleaning for 41 years,
and at least ten other employees have over 20 years experience.
Overall, there are two dozen people with more than ten years’ experience under their belts.
Following many successful years running an innovative, customer-based cleaning
business in the Los Angeles area, Milt decided to retire back in 1985. It didn
’t stick long, however. Four years later, he went back to work as an industry
consultant and worked with the owner of Riverside Cleaners who sought to be
partners with Milt.
“One thing led to another. In 1988, we took it in and bought it,” he recalled.
“We changed it to Regal Cleaners. I bought him out in about a year. I changed it
to Milt and Michael because my son-in-law was Michael.
”
Soon, however, mother nature intervened with the plan. The Northridge earthquake
hit on Jan. 17, 1994. By normal standards, the quake was only a
“moderate” 6.7 on the Richter Scale, but the ground acceleration was the highest ever
recorded in an urban area in North America.
In all, 72 people died and over 11,000 were injured as a result. Everybody else
was shaken up, especially Milt
’s son-in-law, Michael, who decided to move with his family to Florida.
So, Milt renamed the plant Milt & Edie’s after himself and his wife of 51 years. He also spruced up his logo with two
cute furry puppies.
Originally, he wanted to have dalmations on the logo, but timing was not on his
side.
“I was about to put it in the newspaper and all of my ads and everything,” he recalled. “I was going to change it to Milt and Edie’s with the dalmations because Michael was gone. All of a sudden, Disney comes
out with 101 Dalmations. The original studio that made Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs is located just a mile away from me. They would have sued the Hell out
of me.
”
Now, armed with a new name and logo, not to mention an excellent location in the
heart of Burbank
’s Media District, Milt was more than ready to face a new challenge.
“Once I got back in, I didn’t know how much I missed it,” he said.
When he first purchased the cleaners, it was processing about $5,000 per week in
business, or about a dollar per square foot. In time, Milt brought that figure
up a little bit.
“Now, we are doing $75,000 per week and growing,” he said.”
While there are numerous reasons for why the business is so successful, one of
the biggest is customer service. Everything about Milt and Edie
’s seems tailor-made for their customers’ convenience and enjoyment.
The building itself, marked with bright magenta awnings, is unique and
memorable.
As customers go inside, however, things only get better. They are immediately
greeted by the aroma of freshly-baked popcorn, which is available all day and
night.
A smiling maitre d’ directs visitors to one of nine front counters, so there is almost always
instant service and no waiting in line.
It doesn’t hurt that the plant has 70 employees, 24 of whom work the counter.
The store’s atmosphere is designed to make sure that every second a customer spends inside
is pleasant. Music videos play on a plasma monitor and complimentary
refreshments are readily available
— including, coffee, tea, water, candy, cookies, donuts and cheese and crackers.
All of those luxuries are in addition to the customer service pledge the company
must fulfill in order to remain a
Drycleaning and Laundry Institute Award of Excellence (AOE) member.
For any cleaner in the Award of Excellence program, the standards are numerous
and difficult to meet, but Milt and Edie
’s adds its own ten-point policy that it promises to fulfill.
Customers can expect the business to: replace missing buttons; repair torn
pockets; replace hooks and eyes; re-sew open seams; repair linings; check
zippers; open pant cuffs, brush and retack; finish all garments by hands and
bag them neatly; and provide prompt, and friendly and efficient service.
The final point perhaps sums it up best: provide the perfect garment at no extra
charge.
Yet, according to Milt, all those things mean nothing if the plant fails to meet
its customers
’ deadlines.
“Getting the work out for the customer on time is more important than anything,” he said. “You’ve got to put out quality work on time, no matter what you do. If you don’t do that, you lose your customers and your reputation.”
Another area where Milt and Edie’s excels is tailoring. While the number of tailors worldwide seems to continue
to dwindle away, the Burbank business promises a tailor on call every day of
the year. In fact, they have nine available right now and Milt is still not
satisfied.
“My goal by the first of the year — and I want to see if I attain it — is to add two more tailors,” he said. “I believe that will happen. If I add two more tailors I can advertise instant
alterations available seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
“People will now be coming in at 4 o’clock in the morning. That’s a good goal.”
