Community Laundry

I fully agree with the other 2 reviewers so far. This place is definitively sub-​standard. But I’ve also yet to find a «good» laundromat, so it’s not like this place is any different. There are spots to sit down, tables to fold clothes on, and plenty of laundry carts. But it is also totally unmanaged, a bit dirty, and I’ve seen a shady person or two wander inside or near the doorway, which made me feel uncomfortable, and there was no one there to tell them to go away. Also, the machine wouldn’t accept my 5 dollar bill today, so I had to get $ 20 worth of quarters :(
The only thing that keeps me coming back here is my apartment’s lack of laundry and my own laziness/​unwillingness to try someplace else out. And it’s location in Union Square does mean that I can do some shopping or pick up small things I need either at Reliable Market or Market Basket while I’m there.

I mean, it’s a laundromat. They’re not reinventing the wheel here. Who among us has found an amazing place to do laundry – low prices, working machines, attentive staff (and no, your parents house doesn’t count)? And where can I find it?
Davidson Laundry, the previous incarnation, was a bit shady. The sign was falling off the building, the inside of the business was pretty dingy. The new owners have cleaned it up with bright lights and shiny machines, but that doesn’t make this any less of a crummy place to sit around and watch your clothes get clean. I like to do late-​night laundry, but I’ve never seen the attendant who is allegedly there from 8pm-​10pm. My beau says that sometimes a lady comes in with a menacing sock-​full of quarters and reimburses folks for the quarters they’ve lost to Dryer #9 (do not use! eats quarters!), but she could just be a good samaritan with a quirky sense of humor.
The best thing this place has going for it is location. Put your laundry in and go hang out in Union Square!

This place really goes to show that you can’t just add the word «Community» to something that was sub-​standard before and expect it to get better. That’s a darn good lesson for us New Englanders, and maybe the place deserves another star for teaching it.
…Nah. Two is kind of generous already.
Yes, it’s been «renovated», sort of like Apartment 431B was in-​between you and the weird old lady with the cats. It’s adequate, at least for now, in terms of cleanliness and having things like tables, (uncomfortable) chairs and, um, floors — but being «newly renovated», it’d be more than worrysome if it couldn’t even pull that off, wouldn’t it? And that’s it – not only isn’t there luxury or coziness anywhere, there also isn’t anything that doesn’t feel like, well, a crappy laundromat.
What it IS now is pricey, and pretty much unmanaged. So basically the new owners seem to have renovated it in trailer chic, raised the prices, and gone back to ignoring it. YAY PROGRESS.
When I was there, for several hours during a busy time in the middle of the day, not a single employee showed their face the entire time. I even hunted for one, because one of the «new» machines they’re so excited about was broken and ate $ 3.00 of my quarters, then wouldn’t turn on or give them back. What I found was locked doors, stern signage that had nothing to do with being able to get help, and in one place near the back in small print, a phone number I could call «after calling 911, if there is a fire». OH GREAT THANKS. Guy to call in case of a building fire; now THAT’S customer service! I wound up giving up on my twelve (twelve! augh!) lost quarters, and leaving a sign myself on the machine so that no-​one else would lose quarters to it.
In short, this place is still barely adequate, and there’s certainly nothing at all nice or good about it that justifies it being markedly more expensive than places you can walk to, down Somerville Ave or up on Summer St. If they even had anyone on-​site to do basic things like fix machines, refund lost money, or answer questions, it’d be worth a «good enough» rating; but as it is, no. You want to be in the middle of Union Sq. and put «Community» in your name, you’d better step up at least a little — and this place doesn’t.