Two sisters created an oasis of laundry in Brooklyn after they got sick of the dingy, uninviting hole-in-the-wall laundromats littering New York.
Corinna and Theresa Williams were motivated to enter the laundry business after subpar experiences at other establishments.
“The place on the corner of my first apartment was grimy,” Corinna told Apartment Therapy. “There were two, wobbly chairs for seating and ghastly lighting. What’s more, my white linens and towels accumulated a nasty, yellow-ish brown tint.”
Celsious, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was birthed from their displeasure. The name is a nod to their homeland, Germany, and Europe’s use of the metric system. They altered the spelling for branding purposes.
"We love the metric system," Corinna explained to Dezeen. "The precision yet ease of calculating one-hundredth of a meter is a beauty."
The sisters renovated an old hair salon to install top-of-the-line washers and dryers on the ground floor and a café on the top. The space was specifically designed to be inviting to customers who have to wait a while for their clothes to be cleaned. Theresa, who also works as a designer, opted for a yellow and off-white color scheme.
"The color palette was picked to reflect that airiness and welcoming feeling we want Celsious to convey: warm yellows, cozy corals and clean off-whites are needed as a juxtaposition to our equipment's stainless steel," she said. "The theme was 'clean', but 'friendly.'"
The café is another draw for customers. It features a full menu with sweet and savory options curated by chef Marissa Lippert.
“My goal for the cafe is to continually evolve our food while we inform and feed customers in the most intentional way possible,” Lippert told Bon Appetit. “For me, that comes through working closely with local farmers and purveyors, respecting the ingredients we feature, and passing that along to customers.”
Celsious is also eco-friendly. The sisters provide their customers with free biodegradable and non-toxic detergent with only three ingredients: baking soda, washing soda and vegetable soap.
“Conventional, store-bought detergents contain a number of ingredients that can both damage the environment and cause health issues like skin sensitivities, eczema, various allergies, hormone imbalances by endocrine disruptors, and respiratory problems caused by fragrance components,” said Corinna. “Our detergent is one of the main draws of doing laundry at Celsious — we have yet to hear of any customers who have developed sensitivities or allergies to it.”
The café avoids producing waste by incorporating methods like whole ingredient cooking, fermentation and dehydration. Lippert uses the latter to make flour from produce. The café is a draw for people whether they have clothes in a machine or not.
“Since the roll out, we have more customers hunkering down for hours-long work sessions or meetings, and it’s great to have sweet and savory offerings now to carry them through a full day,” said Theresa.
The Williams sisters’ effort is working.
“Our goal was to create a really warm space, and that’s the feedback we’ve been getting from our customers,” said Theresa. “They almost look for excuses to come and wash because our space is more calming to some of them than their own apartments.”
