Success Stories - Hotel Industry

Don and Rhonda Carano
owners of Ferrari Carano Vineyards and Winery in Healdsburg, own Vintners Inn.

Several years ago, when Vintners Inn learned its linen supply company was closing, an immediate search for a replacement vendor began.

Vintners Inn is a small, luxury, 44-room Inn located in Sonoma County wine country.

According to Percy Brandon, general manager, “It was difficult to find a linen service company we felt comfortable with to produce the quality required for our fine linen bed sheets.” 

They eventually chose to expand their terry-only laundry. The move ensured their high quality, expensive linens were treated with care. 

“We searched for a linen service, because of our concern for operating a laundry on the rural septic system. Several things changed that made an on-premises laundry possible.

“Our long-term plan was to double the number of rooms offered from 44 to 80. In order to expand and for our wastewater system to accept the additional water usage, we had to design our own wastewater treatment plant. Since we own 92 acres of vineyards, we had the space to build the plant. Today, we have our wastewater treatment plant tucked away on the far end of our property and there is no way to notice it even exists.

“Secondly, with the planned number of rooms doubling, we recognized there could be considerable savings with an on-premises laundry versus a linen service. We anticipated the savings could be near 50 percent. Those savings would assist us in our return on investment for the water treatment plant.

“Today, our laundry includes a couple 60-pound washers and 75-pound dryers. Our most impressive equipment is our UniMac flatwork finisher. The finisher is the piece that enables us to provide the quality our guests expect.

“Taylor Houseman, our UniMac representative, presented us with two styles of ironers that could produce the volume of linen we required. Of the two models, we selected the higher priced, thermal oil heated model to ensure the finish quality of the bed linens was outstanding. We also liked this model since the amount of natural gas required to heat the thermal oil was significantly less.

“The on-premises laundry has been everything we expected. Our savings versus the linen service are greater than originally anticipated due to our lower cost of wastewater and the lower consumption of natural gas for the ironer.

“Our bed sheets are perfectly ironed everyday. We even iron our fitted sheets to perfection! We were pleasantly surprised by the finished quality of the fitted sheets, as we were told they would be more difficult to finish than our flat sheets.

Our spa robes and towels also have received special treatment since we have upgraded and expanded our laundry. Previously, we laundered our terry goods on-premises with a low-speed extraction washer from previous management. When we installed the super-high-speed extraction UniMac, our drying times for terry products were reduced by about 10 minutes per load. It reduced our laundry labor costs and the shorter drying time reduced our natural gas costs.

“Improving our on-premises laundry has been an outstanding decision for Vintners Inn.  Our finished goods are of the highest quality we have ever provided our guests and our costs have been lower than expected.”