“I’ve always wanted to open up a laundromat,” said Dubois, in a recent interview with The Guardian. “That was one of my business plans in college 30 some years ago.”
And recently that dream became a reality after Dubois and his business partner, Kelly Stephen, decided to open up a laudromat in Souris called Tiny Bubbles.
Stephen and Dubois, in fact own, several businesses in the community including a small inn called “The Church House Inn”, three rental apartments and a hostel.
They also work full-time with Chef Michael Smith
“What is happening is people come in and they want to open a business and they want to make a mint and they want to retire in five years and that model doesn’t work in small P.E.I.,” said Stephen. “(The laundromat) is one of several baskets we are working on and it helps us as far as businessmen and it gives us one more thing in a sphere of things that keep us occupied and busy on P.E.I.”
Stephen and Dubois said they decided to open this business in the community because they saw it was in desperate need for one.
“This community has a large number of seasonal residents and tourists that use to utilize the laundromat when it was at the mall,” said Stephen. “When it closed, it placed the community in a bit of crisis.”
Stephen and Dubois have had numerous visitors ask them where they can wash their clothes and the closest place they could think of was Montague.
“We want tourists. We want to encourage people to come to the community and one of the utilities that we didn’t have was laundromat,” said Stephen. “Small communities like this need to have these basic necessities filled.”
And after Stephen and Dubois bought the building on 65 Main St., it seemed like the perfect opportunity to the fill a niche in the community by opening the laundromat.
“We saved it from the abyss. It had been abandoned and we bought it on a whim,” said Stephen on the historic building in the heart of the town that used to be various things including a dentist office, pharmacy and barbershop.
“When we said out loud that we were thinking of opening a laundromat, people almost wept in relief,” said Stephen.
The laundromat has six washers and six dryers and will be open year round. It will be open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the summer season but those hours will be reduced beginning Oct. 1.
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