PC&D MAGAZINE
Talking suds with Lenny Dykstra
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From Volume 26, Issue 5 - May 2002
Feature
Baseball icon building his third wash, another multi-million-dollar facility.
by: Stephanie Russo, Associate Editor

Sunday afternoon for most Americans entails a late lunch and a long nap. Not for this carwashing guru.

Baseball great Lenny Dykstra, former player for the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies, took the time on a recent Sunday to chat it up with Professional Carwashing & Detailing magazine, discussing his third carwash opening, new equipment at his washes and former teammates who’d make great carwashers.

PC&D: You are currently building your third wash in South Corona, CA; tell us about that project and when it’s scheduled to open.

 Lenny Dykstra: The project in South Corona has been in the works for about five years and is scheduled to open in March 2003.

PC&D: Your typical facilities are costing several million dollars. How many washes do you expect to build, given the high price tag of the washes you’re building?

 LD: We’re always looking to expand. When I build a carwash I build it one way - the right way. I don’t mind saying that I feel the wash in Simi Valley is the finest carwash in the world.

The carwash business is a great business if you are in the right location, you know how to manage and you treat people right. Treat your customers with respect and serve them the best that you can and you’ll have long-standing success.

We have had offers from people who want to use our name and franchise us. The reason I haven’t acted on that is I am concerned with our company’s reputation.

Unless we can manage each store and physically be there, we don’t want to let someone use our name and then run it into the ground.

We’ll expand up to 15 or 20 carwashes if we find the right situation, and if we don’t, we’ll just keep it at three. I am always searching for a situation that is going to make sense for us.


"Carwashing is a necessity everywhere, but especially here in California."
 

PC&D: You have earned enough money throughout your career to get into a lot of different businesses - why carwashing? And not only carwashing, but such large-scale carwashing?

 LD: I am a long-term investor and the carwash business is not going anywhere. Carwashing is a necessity everywhere, but especially here in California.

What I’ve found is this kind of business is not like the stock market; you are not going to have a stock triple in one day and sell for huge profit. It’s a slow, grinding business.

The good thing about this business is if you are in the right location and you treat your customers well, you’ll have consistent good business. Right now my business is not at risk due to a successful track record.


Lenny Dykstra rubs down a fender at one of his three carwashes.

PC&D: At your washes you offer some labor-intensive services, and you are employing up to 100 people at one of your locations. You recently added an auto hand wax machine to the Simi Valley wash to improve labor efficiency. How has that worked out?

LD: We’ve established a relationship with N/S Corporation. What we’ve been able to do is increase our profitability with less labor by using a new machine called an auto hand wax machine.

Our profitability, as far as controlling and managing our labor, has increased as we have been able to increase our average per car. This machine has enhanced our numbers dramatically and provided an increase in customer satisfaction.

Everyone will try something once, but unless they keep doing it, it does you no good. Our relationship with N/S, whom I have been with from the beginning, has expanded and I have been ahead of the curve. This auto hand wax machine has taken us to a new level.

PC&D: There have been, in the past, celebrities who opened washes, but they were more like silent partners. You appear to take a more hands-on approach.

LD: I am physically at my washes on a daily basis. I greet customers and make sure they are satisfied. If they aren’t satisfied I find out why and personally take care of it.

There are not many celebrity carwash owners, but even those small numbers are not in the trenches.

I am actually in the trenches and I see what is going on, which is why this auto hand wax machine is something that I can’t talk enough about. It has taken our profit margins off the charts.

PC&D: In your baseball career you had a reputation as a team player. Assess your team-building skills in the carwash business.

LD: With anything that requires more than one person, everybody has to work together and blend and flow.

On any given day on a baseball team, you don’t know which player is going to hit a homerun and have the game winning hit. It’s the same thing in the carwashing business.

On any given day, any one of our managers or our employees can be the one who will make a customer leave and say, “I had a great experience at Lenny Dykstra’s Car Wash.”


Lenny DDykstra takes a hands-on approach at his carwashes.

PC&D: What are the biggest issues and challenges you deal with as a carwash operator?

LD: Controlling labor, because the majority of the cost when you are running this business, is labor.

I have owned carwashes for eight years now and I am not just looking at numbers from the outside. I am out there on the lines seeing, touching, feeling how it works.

We’ve been able to lower labor costs with this new equipment. Unlike most carwashes, we are able to give our customer a better carwash for a cheaper price, rather than offering a physical hand wax that requires more labor.

PC&D: Of all the baseball players that you have played with in your career, who would be the best potential carwash operator?

 LD: When I was playing, our daily conversation wasn’t usually about carwashing or how many cars you washed in a day - it was about how many hits you got.

If I had to pick a player who would get in the trenches like myself, it would be Kurt Schilling, from the Arizona Diamondbacks. He is a great pitcher and my former Philadelphia Phillies teammate.

He has always been curious about my carwashes, because he knows that when baseball ends one day - and it will - you need another source of income or business-producing cash flow.
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