Loni McCallum greets everyone with a smile. She calls customers by name and tries to get to know any new faces that walk into her establishment. The well known Pacific Grove entrepreneur and owner of Sudz Cyber Laundry has owned 17 businesses, including a head shop in Billings, Montana; a jewelry store in Las Vegas; an outpatient hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida; and now her laundromat in Pacific Grove.
At the age of 10, with three notebooks in hand, money pouches and the same business model based on empathy and giving that she lives by today, McCallum began her life as an entrepreneur with three businesses: asparagus, agates and babysitting. Her grandmother quickly realized her potential and gave advice that shaped McCallum’s business model: “Remember to be as giving as you can possibly be, and do the things for people that you would want them to do for you.” She has done exactly that.
It’s no surprise that she’s been told she’s the heart that makes her business special. From giving away agates to kids she babysat to paying for laundry for struggling parents or washing clothes for homeless community members for free, McCallum loves to give.
Her hospitality has paid off. Sudz Cyber Laundry has been voted Best Of by Weekly readers repeatedly, and on March 6, McCallum will be awarded “Best Service” by the Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce during their annual membership luncheon.
Weekly: How did the laundromat get started?
McCallum: We came from St. Petersburg, Florida. My husband wanted to move here because he was born here. We looked at the laundromat because he thought it would be a good business and I’m thinking, “I grew up in a big family doing laundry, and then I have all these kids and I’m doing laundry, don’t you think I’ve done enough laundry?!”
[Laundromats] are just the opposite of how I live my life and what I believe in. So I thought, if I’m going to do this business I’m going to do it completely differently than most of them are. Water is our most precious commodity. I thought, this seems like a place where people really care about that kind of thing. And I thought maybe it would work here.
What did you do differently?
We wanted to do everything as environmentally responsible as we could, so we got equipment that saves 70 percent of the water and uses half the energy.
Sudz is kind of unofficially a community center in Pacific Grove. We were also the first carbon-neutral business in P.G.; I think that’s really big.
You were an entrepreneur from a young age and your grandmother had a big influence on your business model. In what way?
I just hear her voice all the time. I just wanted to give something extra to everybody; they’re giving us their service and their patronage. You forge this relationship with them. I know a lot about a lot of my customers; when you’re there, you’re there for a long time doing your laundry, so there is plenty of time to talk to each other, to the employees and to me. We get to know each other. The most interesting people I’ve ever met in my life – and I’ve lived a lot of places – are right here.
Like my grandma told me, “You should give as much as you can.” And I said, “Until it hurts?” She said, “Yeah, sometimes until it hurts.” Sometimes that’s sharing something that is super personal with someone so they can heal. Because I’ve done a lot of that myself too – my step-father killed my mother when I was 16 and had a 6-month-old baby, and that made me want to become a legal advocate for domestic abuse.
Sometimes I’ll share that with somebody and they’ll go, “Wow, now you have four businesses and you travel all over the world.” I was a scared little abused girl, living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, that got married really young. So believe me, you can do it too.
Do you think those experiences growing up gave you the empathy that you have today?
Oh, yes! When I see a woman putting their laundry in six six-loaders, and it looks like they’re thinking, “I can’t take it anymore,” I can feel that. I’ll go over and I’ll say, “Hey hon, I see you have six of those, let me get two of them for ya. Why don’t you take some of those oranges from the organic tea and coffee bar and take your kids to the park, I’ll put your stuff in the dryer.” They’ll tell me they can’t afford the transfer from the washer to the dryer, and I’m like, “I got you girl!”
What does it feel like to know that you’ve helped people?
Everything. It’s everything. You just go, “Yes! What an awesome day we are having.”