You may know this face. Yep, it’s Donnie Bing, the Drive-Thru King. With a mug like this and a million dollars of TV time, the face oughta stick.
So, like the Chamber of Commerce gang all say, “How did you get so big? What’s your secret?” And I tell ‘em, “Go for broke…but stop before you get there!” Hah. Hah.
No, seriously, you gotta spend a lotta your time listening, especially when you’re young. Maybe less when you’re my age, but you can’t ever stop or you’ll sink to the bottom and die in the mud. Once you’ve got people’s stories in your blood, so you could imitate anybody and pick their anniversary presents, then you go with your gut, ‘cause now you have a trained gut you can listen to.
People told me I was nuts opening a drive-through laundry. But I knew a couple of things: One: people hated sitting on those cheap, round-ass chairs in cement and linoleum boxes feeding quarters to big steamy machines that were chugging and groaning and sloshing. Sounded like cows with gas. Hated it. Living death.
So I knew they’d come if I could cut the time and make the surroundings more like home. Oh, but here’s the other thing. There was one part they liked. They liked the idea they might meet somebody. Like Prince Charming or Halle Berry would be folding towels and they’d both drop a sock at the same time, and… well, you don’t have to be Hollywood to write that story. So, I knew that, too.
And also, I knew that we had the technology to clean the clothes. I mean laundry for these lonely lovers was a sideline maybe, but they did have to end up with clean clothes, too.
What I did, as you may know, was to buy a carwash that was in receivership, hire a guy used to work bumper cars on the Coney Island pier and completely redo the insides. Added four parallel tracks and about 50 yards of travel. The side-by-side part was the key. You think about it, you’ll see why. We got special cars with wire baskets on top, waterproof windows and intercoms with like four channels, one for each track.
OK, people come by, they toss their dirty clothes in the top rack, climb in and hit the “GO/WASH” button and they’re off. Then they look out their windows and scope the other laundry people. And if they see somebody that catches their interest, they click their channel and they got maybe 40 minutes until the jet blowers at the end are drying their towels for them. It’s like Maytag meets the tunnel of love.
We had to put auto-locks onto the cars ‘cause we had several couples breaking out and getting sudsy, if you know what I mean, right in the middle of spin cycles and the lawyers said any injuries would kill us in court. And besides what would we do with the surveillance tapes?
Anyway, I ended up building more than six in this town alone before I sold out for over two million. I knew then that drive-through was the way to go.
We had our bombs, too, I don’t mind telling you. Mostly because I didn’t listen to the old gut. Like the drive-through birthing centers. I forget what genius got us into that. But hey, whoever it was, I hired ‘em, so I guess I gotta point at myself.
Anyway, with all the pressure on healthcare costs and the insurance companies looking to trim a buck right and left, we opened “Stand and Deliver,” where women could lean back in some really comfy chairs and go around the track until it was time for, you know, the labor. A staff midwife would help bring little Roscoe or Sally into the world. And then about 30 minutes of bonding and drying and off they go with a souvenir picture. Next!
Man, people hated it. Even the insurance people got cold feet and the papers took a lot of cheap shots. But when the business pages started in on me, we shut that baby down in a heartbeat. Oops. No pun intended.
What’s next? I’ll let you in on a little secret. I look at what other people are doing and if something works, well, I’ll try it and they deserve the credit. They can have the credit as long as I get the cash. Hah. Hah.
So the wife and I were driving down I-95 and hit the South Carolina line and I had a whadayacallit, transitory experience. ‘Cause there was an attraction, “South of the Border,” that was selling…nothing. I mean I looked. No scenery. No great food. No history. Just cars jammed in the lots. So, I figure, it’s a whole new game. To heck with service; let’s go for an experience.
So, presto – loose chango, we opened the World’s Fastest Drive-Thru. The secret is that it doesn’t do a honkin’ thing. Basically, your car gets hooked to a traction bar and we pull that puppy through a straight tunnel at about 85 miles an hour. You shoot out the other end, we give you a bumper sticker and a smile and before the blood gets back to your brain you’re on your way. We expect to see a lot of bumper stickers. So, you heard it here first.
Oh, and if you’re ever in my neighborhood…drive on through. Hah! Hah!
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