Emily Strayer is an award-winning, multi-instrumental, founding member of nation band The Chicks.
Should you catch her on the suitable day, although, she’ll even be on the counter at her latest challenge, the elevated laundromat SOAP, smiling and serving to clients.
Strayer and her husband, Martin Strayer, opened SOAP in November. It began as a dream for the couple that has lived in San Antonio for 25 years now.
“Initially, it was industrial actual property that I used to be excited about. My husband and I’ve been desirous to put money into San Antonio,” she stated. “This was one thing we dreamed up that may be enjoyable for us to do and put money into right here on the town.”
The Strayers purchased a constructing close to the nook of Oblate Drive and McCullough Avenue and spent the previous two years turning it into an upscale laundromat. She labored with Urbano Design and Construct and Föda, two Texas design corporations, to present the constructing copious pure mild, a espresso store, extensive steel folding tables and cozy seating areas.
“I needed it to be welcoming colours. I needed a variety of pure mild,” Strayer stated. “We actually paid consideration to the main points.”
Now, clients can are available in, do their laundry and revel in a snack. Strayer has arrange the laundromat costs to be center of the market, with costs starting from $5 to clean 40 lbs. of garments to $9 for 80 lbs. of laundry.
If it’s profitable, she added, she hopes to increase in San Antonio and throughout Texas.
The San Antonio Report just lately sat down with Strayer to debate the expertise of proudly owning a small enterprise in San Antonio.
The interview has been flippantly edited for size and readability.
What’s it like beginning a brand new enterprise in a brand new trade?
I went from highschool straight on the highway, so I didn’t go to school. I inform my associates, I really feel just like the final two years — planning this, making ready for this, dreaming it up, getting all of the nuts and bolts executed — has been my school.
It’s been an enormous studying curve for me, however I’ve actually loved studying about placing the enterprise collectively. The enterprise I’m in may be very insulated in that we now have managers, enterprise managers, highway managers. We’ve got individuals who take up all the day-to-day duties for us so we might be inventive.
That’s form of by design, so that you simply’re not slowed down. The inventive is the enjoyable half. Whether or not it’s doing a T-shirt design or practising a music or getting a stage present prepared, it’s at all times concerning the creativity.
I wore each hats on this challenge. It was a inventive challenge for me, as a result of I really like refurbishing, I really like structure, I really like inside design, I really like branding, I really like all of these issues. It was a really inventive pursuit, however to additionally mom-and-pop it and go get my mortgage and discuss to distributors of washing machines and dryers and go to a laundry present in Houston with my ball cap on me and all of the nuts and bolts of it was enjoyable on sure days and never enjoyable on sure days.
A laundry lounge like this one is a brand new thought in San Antonio. What led you to deal with that?
I’m sensible by nature, and I needed to put money into a enterprise that was recession-proof and pandemic-proof, that was an important want. The important providers are what are going to stay round.
There’s a variety of issues that aren’t going to stay round with new expertise and synthetic intelligence. Individuals are at all times going to wish to do their laundry.
Why not elevate the duty a bit of bit and get individuals someplace to calm down and have enjoyable and do no matter they should do, like make amends for work whereas they’re doing the laundry or get cup of espresso?
Are there components of your different music and job experiences that you simply really feel like contributed, overlapped or helped get you up to now?
I’ll contact on the creativity. In any enterprise, there’s creativity available, and that was engaging to me. The overlap is human emotion.
When persons are coping with music or expressing themselves musically, there’s a variety of attending to the essence of the human situation. Though that could be a stretch, I really feel like that is an all-inclusive place for each stroll of life. Attending to know individuals’s motivations and what drives them to need to must be in a spot like a laundromat, to me, it’s nearly psychology.
I’m curious when you’ve got any ideas about what sort of companies you see succeeding in San Antonio, what a few of that progress and future seems like.
My hope is that small enterprise prevails in San Antonio, and the neighborhood nook outlets proceed to thrive.
I really like that form of really feel of San Antonio-branded issues and having it really feel like a group. I don’t prefer to drive out by 10 and see the strip malls. I don’t like that a part of the [city’s] enlargement.
I like neighborhoods to really feel like neighborhoods and have sidewalks. I’m hoping that’s the way in which San Antonio will proceed to be.
My sister lives in Austin, and she or he at all times makes enjoyable of me? However I really feel like we now have lots to supply. I really like the usual of dwelling right here. I really like elevating my children right here, and I feel the boutique, nook, mom-and-pop retailer is the way in which I want to see San Antonio develop.
