By Paul Post
The area’s oldest, most well-known car wash company is suddenly facing stiff competition from a Georgia-based firm that’s entered the market as part of a campaign to double in size, with 500 locations in nearly two dozen states by the end of 2025.
Family-owned Hoffman Car Wash, founded in 1965, currently has 30 centers including a new one on Route 9 near Exit 17 in Moreau and plans to add more sites in Glens Falls, Halfmoon and Bennington, Vermont, this year.
Each new site costs about $7 million to develop including property purchase.
But Tidal Wave Auto Spa recently opened a new facility on Quaker Road, Queensbury, a short distance from a Hoffman Car Wash. And in July 2022 it launched a South Glens Falls site and plans to add another one on Route 9 in Queensbury, where Uno Pizzeria & Grill is currently located.
Founded in 1999 in Thomaston, Ga., Tidal Wave plans to add 19 new sites in New York state including five now under construction at Colonie Center, Poughkeepsie, New Hartford near Utica, Auburn and Niagara Falls.
Tidal Wave founder and CEO Scott Blackstock is close friends with Chick-fil-A executives and models its business practices after the popular chain restaurant’s, said Brandi Michal, operator and managing partner of Tidal Wave’s new Queensbury facility.
“We pride ourselves on Chick-fil-A service or better so we always have someone greeting you with a smile and give you a perfectly clean car in a most attractive business setting,” she said.
But Hoffman’s CEO Tom Hoffman Jr. said his Albany-based company welcomes the challenge. “It makes us a better company,” he said. “Competition always makes you think about serving customers better. To differentiate yourself from competitors is really the American way.”
Hoffman’s new Moreau car wash building has the same Adirondack-type design as one first introduced at the corner of Route 50 and Northline Road in Saratoga Springs.
The handsome style, developed by Phinney Design Group of Saratoga Springs, has lighted rooftop cupolas.
“We like to make our places bright and colorful,” Hoffman said. “We have a landscape crew and grow our own flowers in greenhouses in Albany.”
In 2020, Hoffman’s moved into a $5 million new corporate headquarters in Albany. Its territory is from Queensbury to Kingston and in Central New York from Utica-Rome to Binghamton including an Oneonta facility.
A Hoffman-owned subsidiary, innovateITcarwash, writes the software to control the wash process, builds motor control centers and makes the dispensing systems for washing solutions. Hoffman’s also uses a water purifying system to reduce spotting, softens water to help solutions dissolve, and builds its own water recycling equipment.
Conveyor systems are built by Glens Falls-based Miller Mechanical Services.
“We do the final assembly,” Hoffman said.
Tidal Wave’s website says it’s one of the top five conveyor car wash companies in the country and has made the Inc. 5000 list for America’s fastest-growing companies since 2020. In addition to New York, it plans to expand in Alabama, Tennessee and Pennsylvania this year as well.
“A Tidal Wave recruiter contacted me and within two weeks I was on an airplane down to Georgia, did training, came up here and have been running the ship ever since,” Michal said.
She started out as managing partner of the South Glens Falls car wash and made the lateral transfer to Tidal Wave’s new Queensbury site, which opened Dec. 6.
Those two sites were previously called Smart Wash, owned by Beatrice and Michael Greenough, the new owners of Mr. Bill’s Carhop in South Glens Falls. Tidal Wave completely gutted and remodeled both locations inside and out.
But Hoffman’s and Tidal Wave aren’t the only ones vying for a slice of the car wash pie. Yates Scott Lansing and brothers Ken and Dave Jersen recently opened Buster’s Car Wash near the corner of Route 9 and Stonebreak Road in Malta, a main entrance to GlobalFoundries’ huge semiconductor plant.
The Jersens own Waterford-based Jersen Construction Group. Lansing owns Lansing Engineering, located in the Bluth Building, a short distance from Buster’s, which he and the Jersens developed 13 years ago in the their first business venture together.
The Bluths were a dysfunctional family that developed properties in the popular sitcom, “Arrested Development,” which appeared on Fox and Netflix from 2003-08. Buster’s Car Wash is named for Byron “Buster” Bluth, one of the show’s characters.
Unlike Hoffman’s Adirondack-type architecture, the $4 million Buster’s facility was designed with Tech Valley in mind, giving it a more modern look.
After considerable research, equipment was purchased from industry leader Sonny’s The Car Wash Factory, and the building was done by Modernwash, which has projects throughout the country.
All three companies’ new car washes opened for business in December, and all three firms offer unlimited wash packages and fund-raising opportunities for local non-profit groups and charitable organizations.
Hoffman’s currently employs 636 people. Hiring quality help is one of the firm’s biggest challenges when opening new sites, Hoffman said.
“We primarily hire from within,” he said. “Through training and education we’re able to develop staff.”
In Glens Falls, a proposed new Hoffman’s is slated for the Steve’s Place restaurant site at 194 Broad St. A spring ground-breaking is anticipated.
A second facility in Halfmoon will be a bit farther south of the current one on Rout 9.
“We look at all kinds of different factors when choosing a location, but mainly a heavy commercial area where there are big box stores, restaurants, grocery stores, population and traffic,” Hoffman said. “It helps to have the experience of owning all these locations, to know what areas work well and which ones don’t. Fortunately we’ve had more winners.”