Are you tired of chewing through your data while you keep a watchful, but not too pervy, eye on your delicates?

Chances are, if – like many hip, urban-studio squatters – you don’t have a laundry conveniently located inside your pad, you visit your local laundromat, and chances are it is boring as hell so you make this visit as little as you can, resulting in a Pisa-like pile of dirty clothes shadowing you in your sleep.

When you cant put it off any longer – perhaps you have a date, or a job interview, or a couple of months have passed and you have gone through your 30 pairs of jocks (a day on either side) –you will take a hike to the spin-cycle shed and spend the whole 2 hours in laundro-hell, trying not to make eye-contact with any creep and cradling your phone with a sweaty hand, watching make-up tutorials or how-to-clean-your-carburettor clips on youtube, slowly going insane and wishing you had a portable television – like they promised you in the eighties, but you don’t because Steve Jobs invented the ipod and ruined everything.)

Well, my fellow ‘burn city brats, some wonderful laundro-cat has created the Godfather of wash & goes, a vending laundry that Vegas would envy, our soapy saviour. Yep, that’s right, someone thought of it before you and plonked it in the middle of Collingwood…

Introducing Soapranos – the Tony Soprano shrine/coin-laundrette.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, not only does this ablution wonderland have The Sopranos playing on a screen, non-stop from 7am-10.30pm, but it also has free wifi, and a really cool vibe.

I have no idea how long it has been there, I am assuming not that long because I often walk this strip between Smith and Hoddle, on Johnston Street, and I have never before laid eyes on it, but I could be wrong. I guess I usually walk during the day and the spectacle is really highlighted in the darkness, with its line of machines jumping out under a bright red splashback, bordered by a checkered floor and the super-cool logo on the window.

In fact, it was only by accident I came across it this time. Just Saturday past, my sister, my mate and I were wandering up Johnston on a bit of a progressive dinner mission, long neck of Coopers in hand, when it jumped out at us. Fully stacked with the latest street press, lotsa mags, and a few comfy stools, we decided to take refuge in there for as long as it took us to knock back our traveler – because we’re totes too classy to drink on the street.

Despite the violent nature of its namesake, it is a friendly little joint. Warm and cosy, and the line of odd socks pinned up on the notice board suggests an honest neighbourhood surrounds.

I wish I didn’t have a washing machine at home and lived close enough to justify going there. I have actually never watched all of the Sopranos. Hmmmm, if you cant get hold of me over the next few months…

 

 

Anyway, they have a Facebook page also, with a few fun puns like, “woke up this morning and i got my laundry done”, and “Dirty laundry – fuhgeddaboudit”. Ha. Love it!

I suggest next time you’re in the Colling-hood, you bring a bag of dirty towels with and check it out, for at least one episode. Or order a pizza-pie from the delightful Rita’s Cafeteria up the road and settle in for a whole season…why the hell not? But be careful, you don’t shit where you eat…and really don’t shit where Tony eats…