Tops Car Wash sold, one family polishes off its 50-year run
Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Sep 16, 2021 • 7 hours ago • 4 minute read
We’re tucked in a quiet, shady corner at Tops Car Wash, a landmark on Richmond Road, waxing nostalgic on a glorious September morning.
Owner Keith Henry, 56, is leaning on his grey F-150 — which, no surprise, is very, very clean — talking about locking the doors for the last time.
Since October 1971, someone named Keith Henry — first the father, now 91, then the only son — has operated the full-service car wash on this old stretch of road, just west of Woodroffe. But Monday, after 50 years, the sale closed, giving ownership to the car dealership next door.
“I guess it’s bittersweet,” Henry said Monday. “I’m completely at peace with the decision, if that makes any sense. I think it’s the proper decision for us.”
Ottawa Honda’s Vik Dilawri is buying the car wash and intends to keep it operating, with the same managers. But, given that Dilawri also owns the Tim Horton’s land to the west and that an LRT stop (New Orchard) is under construction a short hop away, it is easy to speculate that redevelopment will eventually occur.
“It’s probably the best-known car wash in Ottawa,” Dilawri said. “As far as the near future is concerned, we want to operate it as is. Keith and his family have done an excellent job.”
Keith Jr., has been running things for more than 30 years. Not only are there many seasonal ups and down in car washing, but the pandemic has battered the business for 18 months and the whole model of the industry appears to be changing. Neither is there a family member in the succession wings.
So the timing gelled.
The good news for employees (30 or so at peak) is that they will keep their jobs. But the sad news is that another local business landmark, family-owned and operated, may be on shaky ground.
“My father believed that if this place was open, one of us had to be here,” said Keith, who first started at Tops as a teenager.
(Ottawa oldtimers will remember the first sign from the original business — open in 1967 — featured a kind of Planters peanut figure, perched on a globe and tipping a top hat. It was a “top of the world” image that baffled many.)
Over the years, there have been loads of upgrades, of course, and now optical sensors and computers have turned the mechanical washing into a high-tech wonder — the device actually “measures” each vehicle — though still with a touch of the old style.
Because occupants exit the vehicles, many a child has followed a parent’s car from a glassed-in corridor as it makes its way through magical arches of water and soap and spinning brushes, pulled along a track — a Willy Wonka workings, with suds.
Tops found a niche in those willing to pay extra to have their vehicles hand-dried and the interior vacuumed and cleaned. Today, it has four exit bays where workers dart into door openings with powerful overhead vacuums, working with frantic speed.
In the old days, they might do 600 or more cars a day. Now it might be 300. One of the chief differences? The interior of vehicles take that much longer to clean, what with their cup holders and consoles and giant screens and door pockets and razor-thin carpets.
A more recent industry trend, Henry explained, is for a mechanical wash, then provision of an equipped bay where the owner does the interior himself. But this takes acres of space, not a luxury Tops enjoys, not a model they’ve pursued.
Winters can be good (salt), but winters can be bad (snow). People, typically, don’t get car washes in lousy weather.
“And you know what’s really weird? People don’t wash their cars after dark,” Henry said, pointing to one of the many vagaries of the trade. (So they close at 5 p.m.)
There is a psychology, of course, attached to washing your car. “The number one reason people say in surveys is that it actually makes them feel better,” Henry said. “It has nothing to do with the car.”
COVID-19 has complicated things. There were periods in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic when the operation shut altogether. The interior corridor and waiting area are now closed, with clients walking around the building and waiting outdoors.
And staffing has been an issue. Like many small businesses, some workers scattered when the pandemic hit.
His father used to love to chat up customers, Keith said. “The old ladies just loved him,” and the inside of the shop could be like an old-fashioned barbershop or post office, where local gossip was exchanged.
That was then. “The last two years have been very strange.” The messy truth right there — wash it, buff it, hang it on the wall.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-291-6265 or email [email protected]
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...-one-family-polishes-off-its-50-year-run
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