A new car wash with a distinctive 1950s theme has opened at one of the Coast’s busiest shopping centres.
Saydee’s Hand Car Wash has commenced operating at the Maroochydore Homemaker Centre, which is visited by more than a million cars a year.
The business has taken a year to bring to life, after it was first proposed in November 2023.
Co-founders Justin Kutner and Frank Robinson said Saydee’s would provide exceptional service and support the community by employing more than 20 staff members.
“We’re passionate about delivering not just a car wash but an experience,” Mr Kutner said.
“At Saydee’s, we pride ourselves on our attention to detail and the joy we bring to our customers.”
The facility features hand car wash services from $29, as well as a state-of-the-art professional detailing bay.
Mr Robinson said they were hopeful of expanding the business.
“We hope that this first site proves itself successful, delivers on its projections, and if it does we can expand this into other Harvey Norman-owned sites,” he said.
“We’ve got an arrangement with the board of directors that says once you’ve proven this one we’re going to expand, and we’re going to rapidly expand.
“At the moment we’re hand car wash and car detailing but in the future we might do a combination of hand car wash, detailing and we might do automatic tunnels.
“We might also do a site if it’s big enough that has an actual proper diner where we serve milkshakes and hamburgers, to really reinforce the theme.”
Named after Mr Kutner’s daughter Saydee, the business uses eco-friendly Istobal equipment sourced from Europe.
“We’ve spent over a quarter of a million dollars just on our equipment. It’s world’s-best equipment, imported directly from Spain,” he said.
“It gives us capacity to wash up to 300 cars a day but it also gives us some really great eco-friendly statements in regards to how little water we use compared to an automatic car wash.
“Automatic car washes can use up to 300 litres to wash a car; we use about 40 or 50 litres.”
Mr Robinson said the response had been “phenomenal” since opening three weeks ago.
“Our first week we treated our first week as a training week, just to make sure that we were ready for capacity, make sure the crew was washing at an appropriate level,” he said.
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“We offered a discount to staff members upstairs and we were doing 60-70 cars a day on that first week, we were rushed off our feet. We literally had to stop taking in new cars around lunchtime every day just so that we could finish them by knockoff time.
“While it’s fallen back a little bit because of the rain – we’ve had two-and-a-half weeks of non-stop rain, so that’s hurt us a little bit – we’re very, very happy with our initial numbers, it’s building every day.”
Mr Robinson explained why they chose the retro 1950s theme.
“Because we want to expand, and we want to have 30, 40, 50, 60 of these across the country ultimately, we were looking to have something that stood out,” he said.
“We just fell in love with the retro feeling and 1950s. We’re seeing a lot of that retro stuff coming back, everything from vinyl records to 35mm disposable cameras. We just felt it was the right time to pick up the theme.”
Saydee’s Hand Car Wash is open seven days a week. Bookings are welcome but are not required. It also offers a valet experience, so customers can simply drive in, hand over their keys and go shopping while their vehicle is cleaned.
Seniors receive a 10 per cent discount, and VIP Club members get every 10th car wash free. They’ll also be launching a subscription service soon.
Visit saydeeshandcarwash.com.au.
