Mike’s CarWash expanding in NKY with new location in Florence, formerly Soft Touch

By Andy Furman
NKyTribune reporter

Mike’s CarWash is expanding in Northern Kentucky, the Northern Kentucky Tribune had learned.

“We purchased Soft Touch Car Wash (8534 Hwy 42, Florence),” Bethany McAlister, Marketing and Customer Support Director for Mike’s CarWash, told the Tribune . “We are in the process of re-doing it (Soft Touch) and converting it to the Mike’s brand.”

Plans call for the fourth Mike’s CarWash location in Northern Kentucky to open by year’s end, McAlister said.

“We already have a location in Florence (8036 Burlington Pike),” she said, “but this additional location will help serve the growing area of Union. The Soft Touch location is in a high-traffic area.”

McAlister said that those patrons who posses Soft Touch coupon books, may re-deem them for Mike’s coupons at any Mike’s CarWash location.

Several phone calls were placed to Soft Touch co-owners – Doug Simpson and Rick Dalton – as to why the facility was closed in late September, and later sold. Soft Touch Car Wash opened, according to published records, August 1, 2004.

Few carwashes can claim to be 70-years-old, Meghan Kusek, senior editor of Professional Car Washing and Detailing wrote. The first car wash only came into being in 1914, and even by 1948 – the year Mike’s was founded – there were only 18 in operation throughout the U.S., according to Mike’s CarWash website.

Today, there are roughly 80,000 car washes in existence across North America, as noted by the International Carwash Association (CA).

On June 1, 1948, Joe Dahm opened Mike’s Minit Man in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the first automated carwash in the state. Later, Joe’s brother Ed joined him in the business, and together they started a family-owned chain of carwashes that is still thriving 70 years later.

Mike’s CarWash currently has locations in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. They remain a privately held, family-owned and operated business.

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