Down the Hatch: Washing your clothes with beer

Jack Handey, surely one of the deepest thinkers of our time, once said, “I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don’t have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life?”

I’m guessing Handey didn’t have a local laundromat like University of Wash.

University of Wash bears all the hallmarks of a regular laundromat: rolling wire laundry baskets, front-loading dryers, large washers for bulky items. 

But they also have a patio with picnic tables, serve six kinds of beer on draft and many more in bottles and cans, offer cookies (oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia nut, and chocolate chip) and sandwiches (a BLT, a Monte Christo, Elvis Presley’s favorite—peanut butter, bacon, and banana—among others), sell $3.50 mimosas on Saturday and Sunday, have a rotating art gallery, plus darts, pool, and arcade games to play while you wait on the spin cycle. 

Three signs hang from the ceiling behind the bar at U of Wash: CHANGE, FOOD, BEER. Like the place itself, the woman at the counter is no one trick pony. She is at once laundromat queen, change machine, sandwich maker, server, and bartender. 

After she pulls me a Boulevard Tank 7 from the tap, I ask her which machine would best wash delicate items. She points me to the front-loading machines, then walks around from the bar to make sure I find the right setting.

A digital jukebox on the wall is cranking out Motown, blues, and soul tunes. An air hockey table glows with promise and Big Buck Hunter World Edition in the far corner shows scenes of safari and a great hunt. Another sign inside reads: “Laundry today or naked tomorrow.” 

With our current weather situation, the latter might sound appealing, but it’s so cool inside U of Wash you won’t mind having clothes to wear.

In “Down the Hatch,” assistant editor Liz Blood offers a look inside Tulsa’s many bars, pubs, saloons and gin joints. Send suggestions for future columns to liz@langdonpublishing.com or @lizblood on Twitter. For another sip, try Valkyrie's Negroni variations.