Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

As commenter Andrew noted, Mrs. C's Laundry, next to Dutch Cleaners in the IGA plaza (which seems to have no name) has shut down.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

This laundromat was in the Family Dollar plaza on Decker. I've been to several of the coin laundries on Decker over the years when either the washer or dryer was on the blink. My favorite is the one in front of the old Target which has very active family management -- there was always someone sweeping, mopping or otherwise keeping the place tidy, and once the woman in charge was taken aback by my incompetence at shirt folding and showed me how to do it right (it didn't take, I'm afraid). This one I never made it to.

The marquee name of Coin Laundry seems to be more a description than an official name, so I'm not exactly sure when it closed, but I'm guessing within the last few years.

I believe the El Cheapo branding for this Millwood laundromat is fairly recent. Before that, it was Suds or something like that. I don't think the convenience store was an El Cheapo until recently either.

At any rate, apparently both were now under the same ownership and failed together early this month.

I wonder if they will sell off the commercial washers -- those can be quite hardy units.

This old laundromat is across the street (Dunbar Road) from Frink Street's Town & Country plaza, and looks to have been vacant for a good while.

City Feet says it was built in 1970. To me it looks a little earlier. These places always had a certain smell, and a certain look, with the soap dispenser machine with its metal levers and slots, the hard plastic bucket chairs welded to a rail, and the plastic high folding tables. And of course, the whish-whish sounds of the washing machine agitators and the clinks of metal buttons each time the jeans got to the top of the dryer drum and fell down again..

UPDATE 14 December 2012: Updated the closing date from "1980s" to "mid-2000s" based on the comments.