High Volume Dry Cleaner, Nassau County NY

$1.6M

Revenue

$588K

SDE

2.5x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a high-volume dry cleaning operation in Nassau County, New York, running out of a 5,575 square foot facility with ample parking. The business generated roughly $1.6 million in sales in 2025 against $588,000 of EBITDA, which is a 37 percent margin that is strong for the category and signals either premium pricing in an affluent Long Island market or a lean cost structure. It is staffed by 14 employees (8 full-time, 6 part-time) and runs under semi-absentee ownership, meaning the day-to-day is already handled by staff rather than the owner.

Dry cleaning is a classic recurring, route-and-repeat local service: the same households and professionals drop off garments week after week, and switching costs are driven by habit and proximity. The listing flags obvious organic growth levers that have not been pursued, namely pick-up/delivery service and commercial accounts (restaurants, medical offices, hotels, uniform contracts), which tend to carry higher stickiness and margin than walk-in retail.

The real headline asset here is the lease: it runs through January 2048, which removes the single biggest risk a buyer of a location-dependent service business usually faces. A 20-plus year runway on a fully equipped, cash-generating site in a dense, affluent county is rare, and it materially de-risks any capital you deploy into expansion.

Why we like it

At $1,495,000 against $588,000 of EBITDA, this is a 2.54x multiple on a business throwing off nearly $600k a year with a 37 percent margin. That is a cheap entry price for cash flow of this quality, and it leaves real room for a leveraged buyer to service debt and still clear meaningful owner earnings.
Dry cleaning is a sticky, repeat-use local service. Customers return on routine rather than being re-sold each visit, and the business sits in affluent Nassau County where garment-care demand holds up better than most discretionary spend in a downturn.
The lease runs to January 2048, which eliminates the usual existential risk for a location-bound service business. You are buying more than two decades of runway on an equipped site, so you can confidently invest in delivery routes and commercial accounts without fearing a landlord squeeze at renewal.
It already runs semi-absentee with 14 employees in place, so the operating system and labor are built. An operator who actually shows up could tighten pricing, labor scheduling, and throughput and likely expand margin from day one.

How to improve it

Launch pick-up and delivery immediately. The listing explicitly flags this as untapped, and route-based delivery converts one-off walk-ins into subscription-like weekly accounts with higher lifetime value and better schedule density. Start with a single van and a tight radius around the existing affluent customer base.
Chase commercial accounts aggressively: restaurants, medical and dental offices, salons, hotels, and uniform contracts. Commercial volume is recurring by contract, smooths out weekday capacity, and carries better pricing power than retail drop-off. This is the single fastest path to adding margin-rich recurring revenue.
Build a membership or prepaid package offer for high-frequency households (monthly garment allowances, autopay). This locks in revenue, improves cash flow timing, and raises switching costs against the cleaner down the street.
Install a modern POS and route software to capture customer data, automate reminders, and quantify repeat rates. Right now the business likely runs on habit and paper; measuring frequency and churn lets you target win-back and upsell campaigns with precision.
Audit labor and utility costs given the 14-person headcount. Dry cleaning margin lives and dies on scheduling, energy, and solvent/chemical efficiency, so an owner who optimizes shifts to actual drop-off patterns and upgrades to lower-energy equipment can expand the already strong 37 percent margin.
Add adjacent high-margin services such as alterations, wedding gown preservation, leather and suede care, and wash-and-fold laundry. These use the same counter and customer relationship and increase ticket size without new acquisition cost.
Replace or transition the semi-absentee structure with a strong, incentivized store manager tied to revenue and margin targets. This preserves the hands-off upside while removing the risk of a drifting, uncoached operation under new ownership.

Diligence notes

Confirm whether the $588,000 is true EBITDA or a seller's add-back heavy SDE figure, and get the revenue proven. The listing discloses EBITDA but not SDE and leans on 2025 sales 'approximately' $1.61 million, so pull tax returns, merchant statements, and bank deposits to verify both the top line and the 37 percent margin.
Scrutinize the semi-absentee claim and the labor dependency. With 14 employees and an owner stepping back, you need to know who actually runs the plant, what they are paid, whether any key operator leaves at closing, and what owner-replacement cost the add-backs assume.
Review the lease to January 2048 in full: rent escalators, pass-throughs, assignment and change-of-control terms, and renewal/termination clauses. The long term is the thesis, so make sure the rent schedule and transfer rights actually hold up and the EBITDA is calculated on real occupancy cost.
Inspect the equipment and environmental compliance carefully. 'Fully functional' and 'good working condition' are vague; get a machinery appraisal and assess remaining life, plus full environmental diligence on solvents (perc vs. hydrocarbon), permits, and any soil/contamination liability, which is the classic hidden landmine in dry cleaning acquisitions.
Quantify customer concentration and the current revenue mix between retail walk-in and any existing commercial accounts. Understanding how much comes from repeat households versus one-off volume tells you how durable the base is and how much of the 'upside' is truly greenfield.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →