Ed Walters has lived in Brunswick since 1970 and opened his first dry cleaning shop here in 1980 and opened his Strongsville store in April 2000. Ed learned the dry cleaning business by consulting with suppliers, distributors, and reading all the information relevant to dry cleaning that he could find thus building Rapid Cleaners into this area's premier dry cleaning facility. A family run business, Rapid Cleaners was where you would find Ed's daughter Reneé after school and on weekends. Today, Ed and Reneé are co-owners of the business Ed founded and are continuing to set the mark for excellent cleaning services in the community. Dropping by recently, I had the opportunity to visit with Reneé while she offered this explanation of how Rapid Cleaners became so successful:

I've been working at Rapid Cleaners off and on since I was sixteen years old. Every day after school I just watched my parents do what they were doing and the bottom line is that this is where my heart is. My father spent the last thirty-nine years working to make this store successful, it's where his heart is, and it's where I like to be, too. We keep the store and our equipment constantly updated and we have many loyal customers that come in here all of the time in addition to the two to three new customers who come in every day.

In the dry cleaning business, you have to really know what you're doing and I'm learning from the best! Between my father, Lisa our first class fabric finisher and spot removal technician who has been here for eighteen years, and myself, we have more knowledge about removing spots than anyone else around. When you couple that with our same day service and our personalized customer service, you end up with a very successful business.

We offer same day service six days a week on all shirts and dry cleaning. Any thing that's brought in before eleven o'clock in the morning will be ready by five o'clock that afternoon. We do repairs and alterations including hemming trousers, adjusting waists, zippers, and shortening skirts and sleeves. Rapid Cleaners can handle your suede and leather cleaning and have it ready the following week and our shoe repair man also does boots, purses, and luggage. We also clean furs and feather beds and for cleaning carpets, upholstery, and stairs, we rent Rug Doctor hot water extraction systems with a vibrating brush and sell all the chemicals needed for cleaning carpets and upholstery.

My father does an absolutely beautiful job cleaning and preserving wedding gowns. Once the gowns get cleaned, processed, and pressed, they're placed into specially made boxes to preserve them. They're wrapped in special tissue paper and the boxes open like a book and have an oval-shaped window so you can see the top half of the gown. We can actually turn your memories into keepsakes.

We also have a special machine for cleaning feather and down pillows. We remove the feathers from the pillow and place them in the machine that cleans and sanitizes them. Once they've been cleaned, we blow the feathers into a new ticking and sew it closed. When you get your pillow back, it looks and smells like a brand new pillow.

I think what makes us better than the average dry-cleaner is that we truly care about our customers and take the time to make sure we're meeting their needs. In addition to top quality customer service, we strive to offer fast service. After all, we're called Rapid Cleaners!

Rapid Cleaners is the shop that can remove that spot, handle your repairs, and help preserve your memories for the future. They're so dedicated to providing top notch customer service that they even have a night drop box to help you get your cleaning back as rapidly as possible. With a simple phone call, Reneé will provide you with instructions for using the night box service and a stop in the shop will have you looking fresh and pressed by the end of the day so call or stop by today and don't forget to tell them that The Advocate sent you!