Big Sky’s lone public washer and dryer

With more than 3,700 year-round residents, Big Sky’s only public washer and dryer resides at food bank

By Jen Clancey DIGITAL PRODUCER 

Around the corner from the food aisle in the Big Sky Community Food Bank sits a washer and dryer in a closet next to the resource center’s kitchen. The machines are a standalone pair in Big Sky—they are the only public self-serve laundry machines within 30 miles. 

Sarah Gaither Bivins, the operations manager at the food bank, explained that the machines were replaced in 2022 after renovations to their location in the Big Horn Shopping Center. With a focus on keeping customers fed, providing quality food and connecting them with resources, Bivins knows that the lone washer and dryer serves an essential service, though limited in hours, after Big Sky’s only public laundromat closed in 2022.

Sit and Spin Laundry Lounge, a retro bar paired with a public laundromat, opened on June 16, 2018. The hours were worker-friendly, open from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m., later changed to 1 p.m. to 2 a.m., seven days a week. The business welcomed patrons to start their laundry, sit and buy an alcoholic beverage if they felt inclined. 

Sit and Spin closed in 2022, leaving a clean-clothes void in Big Sky. For those without a washer and dryer their options include the food bank’s laundry services, a drive through the canyon for self-service laundry, pickup and drop off services from Bozeman or West Yellowstone businesses, or a friend with a washer and dryer to help them out. 

Depending on the season, the food bank will see three to five people use the washer and dryer a week. It’s affordable—$1 to wash and $1 to dry—but that show of demand is limited by the food bank’s hours, Bivins explained.  

“We’re only open four days a week and we have short hours. It’s hard to get a whole load done, or multiple loads done,” Bivins said. “I think a lot more people would use it if we had more hours.”

Bivins estimates that their service could be used by anywhere from 10 to 20 households if it operated with more hours and notes that the customers come for a variety of reasons. 

“We’ve seen all of those things—people living in their cars, people whose laundry at their facility is broken or full and people who don’t have laundry [machines],” Bivins said. She notes most customers are living in their cars, a population of folks that grows higher in the summertime to at least 20-25 in Big Sky, and dips in winter months.

Laundry as an essential service is easily overlooked, Bivins said, describing what it feels like to show up to work in clean, fresh clothes and how that can be taken for granted. In recent years, the demand for the food bank’s overall resources has increased—2023 winter saw a 97% increase in use of its services—which Bivins connects to inflation, cost of food and increase of employees. It’s a demand that has stretched the food bank to provide for other needs like affordable clothing. 

Bivins hopes that the food bank can return to its core mission of assisting with food access as other nonprofit organizations like Big Sky Thrift and Wellness in Action open complementary resource centers. 

A potential solution for a laundromat is noted in the 2023 Big Sky Capital Improvement Plan. 

In collaboration with the Human Resource Development Council, a nonprofit dedicated to building resources and supporting communities in southwest Montana; and the Big Sky Behavioral Health Coalition, a group that supports behavioral health services, the plan outlines human resource needs for Big Sky. Included in the list of needed facilities is an emergency shelter, which lists laundry along with showers and hookups.

“There have been several community conversations about the need for some type of emergency shelter,” Bivins said.

Community partners need to decide on factors such as regulations for clients in the facility, staffing, location and safety of the building itself. The timeline for the emergency shelter is between 2023-2028. 

Meanwhile, employers, residents and businesses make do. 

When Lone Mountain Land Company housed employees at River Rock Lodge, they included a laundry pickup and drop off service within the housing package. Employees no longer live in the lodge, and Tara Ayers, who’s worked as operations manager for a year at LMLC, explained how the company treats laundry as non-negotiable in both community and employee housing. 

“So … every unit has a kitchen, every unit has [what] I call in my world—because I do a lot of resident experience stuff—the necessities and the niceties,” Tara said. “So necessities are laundry services and being able to cook and having access to those things.” 

LMLC’s 511-unit, 2,000-bed portfolio of workforce housing spanning Big Sky and Gallatin Gateway are equipped with in-unit laundry or onsite services, according to Ayers.  

Some may take the trip to Bozeman’s four-strong laundromat scene, about a 55-minute drive. One of these laundromats, Duds N Suds located at 503 S 23rd Ave., 31 miles from Big Sky, includes self-service operation as well as pick-up and delivery services to southwest Montana areas like Big Sky. 

Owners and business partners Travis Ballenger and Todd Binford spoke to EBS at a picnic table outside of Duds N Suds.

“We just have a really loyal and wonderful customer base,” Ballenger said, adding that just the other day a customer brought donuts to employees. It’s the end of June and there’s a fresh coat of paint on the 3,300 square foot facility. Parking lines are touched up in the lot and three apple trees are growing on schedule for casual harvest in the fall. 

The pair purchased the business four years ago and noted that the renovation and takeover required significant investment. 

“You’re gonna have to have a lot of money to be able to invest in the infrastructure … there’s so much behind the scenes,” said Ballenger, noting the investments in two large boilers, a soft water system, and a salt operation. Luckily his partner Binford is apt in taking care of mechanical issues that happen with the machines, which is a common occurrence.

“There’s usually something a couple times a week,” Binford said. 

Not to mention, there is a hefty but worthwhile price tag for modernization. Technology streamlines the business’ wash, fold and dry operation to four service areas all while the self-service side of the business continues. 

Duds N Suds is quarter-free. It operates through a loyalty card system that customers can add money onto and earn cash back. Ballenger said Duds N Suds was at the forefront of these technological advancements in laundromats. Customers can also directly make an order for laundry pick-up and services online, and can control details down to laundry detergent type and folding style. 

The owners also operate the neighboring Duds N Suds car wash and a pet wash on the property.

“This place has always had a good reputation of being really clean,” Binford said, explaining that making the customer experience personable and relaxing is key.

Overall, Binford and Ballenger describe joy in being able to help and connect with people and take pride in the growth of their 10-12 employees who can earn commission, tips and have access to benefits like health care and a Roth IRA. 

Binford and Ballenger consider Big Sky a place of growth for the pick up and delivery side of the business, where they currently run one truck between Big Sky and Bozeman. 

When it comes to the feasibility of a laundromat resurrection in Big Sky, Ballenger and Binford’s experience rings true. A potential laundromat owner would need to invest about $18,800 for two washer machines and about $47,000 for five machines, according to Big Sky County Water and Sewer District General Manager Ron Edwards. Edwards has worked with the water and sewer district for almost 30 years and is familiar with the fees required for new facilities and homes in Big Sky. 

The calculations for washer machines begin at the defined single family equivalent per machine, Edwards said.

Then this number is multiplied by the connector fees established in July 2022. Add on the water charge for each hookup per washer machine and totals already are in the tens of thousands upfront. 

This number doesn’t include the cost of the machines themselves, their maintenance, rent and the subsequent water bills.

Big Sky is an outlier in mountain communities nearby. Madison Laundry & Dry Cleaners operates in Ennis and there are three businesses in West Yellowstone: Little Ducklings Laundry, Canyon Street Laundromat and Showers, and Fox Den Laundromat and Showers. 

In the meantime, Big Sky’s washer and dryer will be chugging away at the back of the food bank for those who need it.