Products - Coin-Op Machinery - Money Makers - Arabi Coin Store
"Arabi chose Pellerin Laundry Machinery Sales Company, a local Milnor laundry equipment distributor to design and install the machinery."
An easygoing family man with a strong bond to his community, Ronald Caillouette is New Orleans through-and-through. "I grew up in the 9th Ward of New Orleans and I’ve lived in the area my whole life," Caillouette said. "When we moved to the suburbs here in St. Bernard Parish, my wife and I started a family, we opened a business, we owned and rented property. We worked hard to become successful." A dry cleaning store that Caillouette purchased 25 years ago in Arabi, La., was an established, decades-old business that was housed in a commercial building which he also owned.

Caillouette’s life story sounds like a south Louisiana version of the American Dream until the calendar turns to late summer of 2005. That’s when Hurricane Katrina crossed the Gulf Coast causing catastrophic damage from New Orleans to Mobile, Al. That storm and its resulting floods killed thousands, created over $100 billion in property damage and changed millions of lives. Ronald Caillouette and his family were just some of the people whose "post-Katrina" lives are much changed as a result of that storm.

The Storm
Although the hurricane devastated coastal communities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, the New Orleans area was particularly impacted when protective levees around the metropolitan area began to break apart under the intense storm surge. Caillouette’s community of St. Bernard Parish was in the crosshairs of two of the larger sources of flooding during the storm. Water that ripped through the Industrial Canal levees and the lower 9th Ward of New Orleans continued their path eastward into Arabi and St. Bernard Parish. Additionally, storm surge-driven water from a shipping channel just north of the community tore apart those protective levees and inundated nearly every square foot of the parish.

The result was 6-to-8 feet of water in most parts of the parish, with some areas receiving higher water levels. Like the city of New Orleans further upriver, the bedroom community of St. Bernard Parish was in crisis. Caillouette’s family had evacuated to Houston.

The Cleanup
Caillouette returned to St. Bernard Parish in late September – nearly a month after the storm. His 5,000-square foot home was completely flooded, with water levels even reaching the second floor. A rental duplex he owned nearby was also heavily flooded. His business – Arabi Cleaners – took on about 10 feet of water and was seemingly unsalvageable. Among all of Caillouette’s properties, he and his family chose to start working on the business before anything else.

"The dry cleaning equipment was corroded and everything was covered in mold," Caillouette said. Customer clothing, cash registers, service counters and other contents of the building were unrecoverable and thrown out. Most parts of the building – including ceiling tiles, wallboard, and flooring were also ripped out as part of the commercial building’s gutting process. "The height of the water in our building was unbelievable," Caillouette said. "At one point during the clean-up, I was up on a ladder pulling marsh grass from the ceiling supports of the building. That’s how high the water was in my store."

The Decision
The Caillouette family made their way back to the New Orleans area and rented a house across the Mississippi River, about a 30-minute drive from their former home in Arabi. "The storm destroyed my dry cleaning store, so I wanted to re-open as something that the community needed," according to Caillouette. "I knew that people weren’t going to be dry cleaning things in St. Bernard Parish for a long time. But, I knew that people were going to need to do laundry."

A career dry cleaner, Caillouette said he had never set foot in a coin laundry until Hurricane Katrina. He started doing his homework and learned a lot about the industry in a short amount of time. He surveyed Laundromats in the New Orleans area and started making plans for his own store. "The first thing I learned was that every story and each store’s customers are different," he said. "I also became very interested in card readers. One local Laundromat owner told me that people were using grimy coins that
had been found in flooded houses and that they were jamming up the coin mechanisms. I wanted to avoid any problems that other store owners were having." Caillouette also made a choice to use local contractors and area companies to try and further rebuild the New Orleans area. His electrical, plumbing and building contractors mostly came from the greater metropolitan area. He also chose Pellerin Laundry Machinery Sales Company, a local Milnor laundry equipment distributor to design and install the machinery.

The Store
The process was fraught with challenges that are unheard of in most parts of the country, but all too-common in post-Katrina New Orleans. For instance, electrical services weren’t reconnected to Caillouette’s building until September of 2006 – some 13 months after the storm. Much of the work to the building had to be done from generators and battery-operated tools. Even with a large influx of out-of-state and international workers, contractor labor continues to be scarce in the New Orleans area as a result of the enormity of the work to be done. Caillouette has managed an army of contractors and put in much of his own work himself, along with his sons.

Lesson Learned and the Future
Caillouette said his years as a drycleaner taught him a lot about customer service, however, he’s learned some new things from his coin store experiences. "My customers know the value of money and they are looking for a place where they want to spend their time and their cash," he said. "If they feel like they are being ripped off or they aren’t valued as a customer then they won’t come back."

He also commented on the importance of keeping a clean store. "I’ve had customers come in and tell me that this is one of the cleanest Laundromats that they have ever been in. That’s a very important thing here where people are working so hard to clean up."

Caillouette also speaks highly of his card-reader system, mentioning that the capabilities of managing vend prices and store revenues have been a big help in his new venture.

Arabi Laundromat may be up and running, but other Caillouette family projects are ongoing. At the time of this writing, they were still working on their duplex rental property. After completion, Caillouette and his family hope to move into that property and back to Arabi. Their two-story home is still a work in progress, however, and Ronald Caillouette – like most people in the New Orleans area – has learned to take things one day at a time. "It’s going to take a long time to get our area back up and running to anything that resembles how things were before the storm," Caillouette said. "It’s going to take a lot of people working together to make things better."

Arabi Laundromat operates in Arabi, Louisiana with 10 toploaders, 12 Milnor Visionex 20-pound frontloaders, 4 Milnor Visionex 40-pound frontloaders, 4 Milnor Classic 60-pound frontloaders, 10 Milnor stack dryers and 4 Milnor 75-pound dryers.