A fast car and pressed shirt are two things that probably won't ever go out of style. Considering we live in an age of rapid economic disruption, those two facts present a potentially endless business opportunity.

Everything breaks. It’s a natural law. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong is how Murphy put it. Scientists call it entropy. In business terms, you’d call it a blue ocean. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Some stains just never get out of the shirt. 

Before you panic, though, maybe visit my guest Miles Frank.

Dry Clean

Miles owns and operates C&R Quality Cleaners, a dry cleaning business with four locations across Acadiana. Trained as a mechanical engineer, Miles hit the road as a field service technician after college. Which meant he was away from his family for long stretches at a time. In 1996, the birth of his twins changed his calculus. He started looking for something closer to home. A dry-cleaning business in Crowley came up for sale, and Miles saw his opening and bought it. 

Over time, Miles added locations and consolidated operations, applying an engineer's eye to efficiency along the way. Today he runs Park Avenue Cleaners in Crowley and three C&R locations in Lafayette. He says the secret to his success is adaptation. C&R invests a lot in updated equipment and has added 24-hour, automated kiosks to cut down on emergency pickups, for instance. 

Nationally, the dry cleaning industry is worth roughly nine and a half billion dollars a year — and Miles runs a piece of it right here in Acadiana. 

Auto

In some ways, cars have changed a lot. But when it comes down to it, a car is an engine, a chassis and four wheels. No matter the make and model — or whatever computer is doing the driving — it’s going to need a tune-up once in a while, or maybe something more. 

My guest Mitchel St. Romain can help you. He owns and operates Driven Results, a Lafayette-based auto shop. 

Mitchel was born in Alexandria but grew up in Lafayette. He spent his early career in sales and marketing. Then a layoff in the oil industry forced a reckoning. Jobless, he turned to his passion: cars. He had grown up watching his dad fix cars the old fashioned way. Mitchel himself has spent the better part of two decades loving and working on an old Porsche. Fixing cars for other people was a natural next step.

Mitchel started doing repair, paint and body work out of a shop at his house. Word of mouth grew the business and in 2020, he made it official.

He keeps the operation intentionally small, working alongside his brother-in-law, with subcontractors brought in as needed, so he can keep the experience personal.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded one final time live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi before we packed up our chopsticks, picked up our plate lunch, and moved to our new location, Gravy, just a few blocks away in Downtown Lafayette. Join us next week at Gravy. 

Meantime, you can find photos from this farewell to Tsunami show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com