Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994 TAG: 9404070205
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"All cleaners and launderers are competitors," said Logan, owner of the Salem company.
"There's competition within five blocks in almost any direction," he said, pointing to the many plants or pickup offices scattered throughout the area.
"And nearly all of them are small and owner-operated," he said.
Even if they are affiliated with a national marketing organization, the business is locally owned and operated. The nearest thing to a chain operation, he said, is in few cases where an owner lives in a nearby community and operates cleaners there and in the Roanoke Valley.
So, how does Peacock-Salem meet this universal competition?
"We try to give better service and better quality at a reasonable price," Logan said.
And this tactic seems to be working, he said, because the company has customers throughout Shawsville, the Roanoke Valley and the Botetourt County communities of Blue Ridge and Daleville.
It offers full service with pickup and delivery two times a week throughout the area. In addition to dry cleaning and full-service laundry, Logan said, Peacock-Salem also offers drapery and rug cleaning, wedding gown preservation, pillow renovating and alterations.
It also has refrigerated storage facilities with humidity control for furs and woolen garments.
Logan said the location of the business' office is a factor in winning customers. Sometimes people will go to a particular dry cleaner because the office is convenient, he said.
Logan said this is an advantage for Peacock-Salem, which he said is in "a good location," in downtown Salem; has off-street parking; and plenty of room to grow.
The business, which has 35 employees, has been in this same location since it was begun about 1908 as the Salem Steam Laundry. It became Peacock-Salem in 1935 when Logan's father, John Lee Logan, ended a short-lived merger with a Roanoke company known as Peacock Laundry. The Roanoke operation became Magic City Laundry, which, for many years, was at Memorial Bridge in Roanoke.
Joseph Logan's father, John Lee Logan, left Magic City Laundry in 1935 and began what is now Peacock-Salem Launderers & Cleaners.
Logan, who also is a hot-air balloon pilot - his "second love" - began working in the business with his father in 1951.
Since then he has seen many changes, and one of the biggest has been the shift in laundry. At one time laundry accounted for about 85 percent of the company's business with the other 15 percent going to dry cleaning.
But, with the coming of cheaper and more efficient home washers and dryers those percentages have reversed so that today, dry cleaning accounts for 85 percent of the business with 15 percent going to laundry.
As a boy growing up in Salem, Logan visited the plant many times before he began working for the company. Logan spent 2 1/2 years in the Navy during World War II and then returned to Salem to graduate from Andrew Lewis High School. After high school, he went to Virginia Tech and the National Institute of Cleaning and Dyeing in Silver Spring, Md.
Peacock-Salem Launderers & Cleaners is at 231 Colorado St., in downtown Salem. Telephone is 389-7221.
by CNB