The Wash-a-meteria: Coming Clean and Eating, Too!

This summer, after a bevy of guests had departed, I mentioned to a neighbor that I intended to take the soiled linens to the washeteria in town to wash them instead of trying to do all of that laundry in my small washing machine. Quizzically, she said, “Washeteria? Do you mean laundromat?” I was surprised to find she had never heard of the word “washeteria.” After a brief discussion, I figured it might be a regional difference in vocabulary, as I grew up in Louisiana and she in New York. (Note: when my daughter was young, she referred to the self-service laundry place as the “wash-a-meteria.” See “At the Wash-a-meteria: A True Story” on Be-Lied.)

So, I did what I do when researching words and pulled out my Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Much to my surprise, the OED defines “Laundromat” as “The proprietary name of a brand of automatic washing machines,” not as a generic place where one goes to pay to wash one’s clothes. The first usage which the OED cites is from 1943 identifying “Laundromat” as “Domestic electric washing (laundering) machines; also, by extension, a launderette.” (“Launderette” is the British usage.)

The OED also defines “washeteria” first as a “launderette,” “An establishment providing automatic washing machines for the use of customers.” The second definition reads, a “car washeteria: a self-service car-washing establishment.” Thank goodness for brevity in vocabulary!

Then, I did what most people do these days when researching and Googled “laundromat,” hoping for a history of the Service Mark. I got links for the 2019 movie, The Laundromat. I got listings of laundromats near me. I found a link to the Persimmon Café in downtown Charleston, which consists of a laundromat tucked inside a café, so patrons can eat while their clothes wash. (More on that concept later.) I discovered after some dedicated searching that I wasn’t too far off in my hypothesis regarding the regional origins of the words.

At this point, I must shamefully confess that I used a source, Wikipedia, which I try not to use if I can find other sources, but I found some helpful information on the history of “Self-service laundry,” specifically washeterias and laundromats in this article.

In April, 1934, J. F. Cantrell opened “the first commercial washateria (laundromat) in the United States,” in Fort Worth, Texas, according to Texas Landmarks and Legacies (cited by Wikipedia). Cantrell offered the short-term rental of four steam-powered washing machines by the hour, hence a Southern rooting of “washateria.”

In the early 1940s in New York City, Harry Greenwald discovered a demand for self-service washing machines. He invented a coin meter which he pitched to Westinghouse. Westinghouse agreed to put his coin meter exclusively on their washing machines and trademarked the word, “Laundromat,” providing a northern rooting of that word. (Greenwald’s son, Ken, remembers his father’s role in creating the “Laundromat” in a post on the blog, Word Wizard.) Greenwald’s son, Ken, remembers his father adopting the word “laundromat” based on the idea of the automat which dispenses food.

“Washeteria” is adapted from the idea of cafeteria, a type of self-service place, with the “-teria” meaning “a suffix used commercially to form the name of self-service retail or catering establishments,” attached to “café” meaning coffee, although according to the OED, a cafeteria has evolved from a coffee house to “a restaurant, esp. a self-service restaurant.” With marriage between cafeteria and washeteria—automat and laundromat--in mind, I was highly amused to find the Persimmon Café in downtown Charleston with a laundromat in the back.

An example of the usage of “washeteria” in the OED includes the following wry complaint from the Sunday Times on July 17, 1966: “Now that we have grown accustomed to the blandishments of . . . something called Washeterias, the next step may be drive-in laundries.” Sonic, here is a business idea for you. Your customers can super-size their food and drink orders to include laundry services, so your skating servers can serve up laundry along with sodas. Also, if someone spills food while eating in the car, laundry facilities are close at hand.

People in the American South go to the washeteria for self-service clothes laundering, people in other areas of the United States go to the laundromat, and people in Britain go to the launderette. A self-service laundry facility by any other name makes the clothes smell just as sweet!