Mak Cleaners in San Diego, California

I generally do my own laundry and can handle hand-washing some fragile clothing items, but when it comes to my dress coats... I'm simply out of my league! And so, it is a relief to live within a short walk from 3 different dry cleaners here in downtown San Diego. Although all of them offer similar services for similar price, the shop I return to most often is Mak Cleaners on Market Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in East Village (just a few blocks northeast of Petco Park baseball stadium).

This is one of the 5 Mak Cleaners locations in San Diego County... so it is pretty much a locally own shop. The place is close to a bus stop and trolley line (Market & 12th/Park Blvd). There are metered parking spots on the street and an ACE parking lot 2 blocks to the west. The cleaner is a modern establishment that does everything from specialized dry cleaning to alterations, shoe repair, carpet & rug cleaning (and cleaning of other household items). You simply walk in with the clothes, the clerk examines the items, quotes the price along with the time when you can return to pick the cleaned clothes up, get your name and telephone number, and give you a print out with quoted price and order number.

The price is on the high side (though not unreasonable so considering the location). It costs $2.10 to clean individual shirt, $4.59 pants or skirt, $5.09 sweater, blouse, or dress shirt, and $12.19 for 2-piece suit. I've had two different coats dry cleaned here; a suede sport coat and a dress jacket. At $7.09 each (tax included), that was a good deal since they did a good job with them.

I got them back on time (3 days after dropping them off, as promised) in a neat plastic cover and hung on a hanger. The coats were very well cleaned. There was no wrinkle left and hardly any smell (of the cleaning agent) left to be detected on the coats, no damage done to the material or the color, either. In other words, no cause of complaint from me.

The staff are friendly and very efficient. I never had to wait for any extended amount of time dropping off or picking up the items (although the business seems to be doing ok. The clothing carousel behind the counter is always full of cleaned clothing items waiting to be picked up).

Mak Cleaners : 1301 Market St (between 9th and 10th), San Diego, CA 92101. Tel (619) 234-3455.