‘Car wash, yeah’

Scrub-a-dub-dub, send your car to the tub. Royal Suds Carwash and Laundry is making it easier to make your vehicle shine opening up for business in Prairie City.

Located south of Casey’s at 405 Commerce Dr., the car wash features two automatic bays and one oversized manual bay along with a laundry facility to serve the people of Prairie City and beyond.

“We had went back a forth for a couple of years on whether or not to find property to put in a car wash,” owner Lindsay Landwehr said. “(It is) something we would for sure use and also be a good addition to the community.”

After pulling the trigger to look for land, Landwehr, along with her husband Travis, decided to purchase the property behind Casey’s that had been on the market for quite some time. From there, drawings started and were finalized and construction was underway.

The undertaking was a process for the couple with many decision to make on the new venture.

“First (we had to decide) of how many stalls and how many automatics and how many manuals,” Landwehr said. “ It did help that we own our own plumbing company and we have done the plumbing on multiple car wash jobs.”

The project did hit a couple of bumps along the way, in part thanks to COVID-19 showing up.

“We had to patiently wait for the car dryers to show up. Thanks to COVID-19 they were being pushed off numerous times. We finally had to end up going a different directions with the dryers,” Landwehr said. “Also internet was a big issue. (The provider we selected) just kept pushing dates back and not communicating, so we thankfully found a different company to go through.”

Opening a new business can be trying, especially when a pandemic drops in. With no car wash available in town, the push to provide the service was even stronger for the couple.

“It was stressful at times. I hated that dates were continuously getting pushed back,” Landwehr said. “I knew how bad this City wanted a car wash and we just wanted to provide that for them once we started.”

Now that the stalls are open and community members have had a chance to shine up their rides, Landwehr is relieved and happy with the venture.

“I feel that it has went very well,” she said. “Anyone that had came up to us seems very optimistic about it.”

The 24 hour facility has four options for the automatic bays: Basic at $7, Deluxe at $9, Premium at $10 and Ultimate at $12. There is also two vacuums, one air freshener machine and a shampooing/spot remover machine at Royal Suds. Credit and cash are both excepted.

“We will also be providing wash cards for purchase. Any amount can be placed on the cards but any one card that you put $50 or more you will receive a 10 percent discount,” Landwehr said.

Not to be out shined, the laundry facility features two washers that size four times the size of a normal residential washer and two dryers that are five times the size of a normal dryer.

With the water flowing and suds growing, the couple are happy the business can provide a much needed service to the community.

“We would just like to thank everyone for their patience during this time,” Landwehr said.

For more information about Royal Suds Carwash and Laundry email royalsuds.pc@gmail.com.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com