Motorists on Siegen Lane soon will be traveling along a new battlefront in Baton Rouge. On one side: Benny’s Car Wash. On the other: Geaux Clean.
As Business Report notes in a feature from the current issue, both brands are building new locations on the roadway as they vie for a share of the estimated 80,000 cars traveling the thoroughfare each day.
The new entries are evidence of one of the Capital Region’s most competitive business sectors these days: car washes. A tidal wave of car wash businesses is crashing into Baton Rouge. Eager investors are scooping up land and opening different car wash models all over town.
“We’ve seen this before,” says Justin Alford about the boom. He notes that in the 1970s Exxon came in and built six full tunnels, and now none of them are left. His own family has owned Benny’s Car Wash since 1951.
“In the last couple of years people started to build these express washes everywhere,” Alford said.
Baton Rouge may be at risk of getting too many car washes to meet demand. Such a situation has developed in Atlanta, where the Alfords have watched the car wash market become so saturated that businesses will do anything to set themselves apart. One operation, known as the Auto Spa Bistro, doubles as a bar so that customers can eat and drink while they watch their car get cleaned.
“People are only going to wash so many cars, and [Baton Rouge] can only handle so many car washes,” Benny Alford says.
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