Laundromat Review #2 (In Thunder Bay!) —Barb’s Laundromat and the Hoito

7 min readFeb 17, 2020

Hi, we’re Dave and Anne-Marie: two employed, full-time professionals living in downtown Toronto, so obviously we have 2 roommates and no onsite laundry! That’s why every Saturday we packed up all the fabric in our apartment and dragged it to the nearest Laundromat, then went to the café next door for coffee and breakfast. For over a year a healthy if boring routine settled in and then: disaster. The café closed.

Reeling from the loss and severely under-caffeinated, we hatched a scheme while waiting for the bath mats to dry: destination Laundromats. We would pick a breakfast, then pick a nearby laundromat and write up our experience for the benefit of… well having something to do while bath mats dry (we like them THICK).

This week it’s Family Day in Ontario so on the second time out we’re breaking the format! We’re visiting Dave’s Parents in Thunder Bay so we’re gonna do THEIR laundry at Barb’s Laundromat (213 Algoma St S) and grab breakfast down the street at the blessed Hoito (314 Bay St)

If Barb’s is about anything, it’s rules. Her commandments, on 2 sheets of 8 1\2 x 11, are posted throughout the establishment as Moses would have likely done had he an office photocopier… and a laundromat.

The first surprise as a pair of foppish Toronto fancies was certainly the free and dedicated parking lot at Barb’s. We pulled in — as is local custom — in an enormous truck and were warned by signage (seriously, Barb stans rules) that you can park for a maximum of 24 hours before Gary of Gary’s towing will come with an even more enormous truck to impound yours. Barb’s is open from 8:30 AM to 9:30 PM most days so you most likely need not fear Gary, but I’m sure his spectre keeps the laundried masses in line, which is a bit of a theme at Barb’s.

What people? Rebellious toughs daring each other to put in Toonies REALLY FAST?

Upon entering you are immediately confronted with the change machine which — shocker — has rules! Namely that use of the change machine is forbidden to the laundry-doing rabble and reserved for the attendant due to unnamed “people” who spoiled automated change-getting for the rest of us, for shame. This Barb’s is one of four in Thunder Bay, and so it is doubtful that our helpful attendant was Barb herself, but perhaps Barb is a title and not a person? Perhaps… we are all Barb? Anyway, after negotiating with our Barb for quarters, we assessed the machine situation.

There are a half-dozen antique top-loaders, 2 kinds of modern medium front-loaders and 2 big boys near the back. Dave’s parents’ laundry took up two mediums. We then attempted to feed our machines quarters so we could get to feeding ourselves pancakes. I say attempted… because the washers at Barb’s are picky eaters. They all like their quarters just so. Whatever the washing machine equivalent to noodles and butter is, these machines want that. Try as we might all we could do was shoot quarters at ourselves via the washer. To get the machine to swallow the quarters only the perfect weight, the perfect roll, the perfect touch would do.

This is when we learned the true purpose of our Barb: she had perfect quarter-feeding hands. She took our messy pile of coins and shook them one-handed into a perfect stack, then WHILE NOT EVEN LOOKING fed both machines without a single reject while explaining what the trick was, when very clearly there was no trick, you just had to be Barb (or one of her avatars). Awed at her magic, we thanked her and had an amazed stumble down Algoma St to the Hoito for Breakfast.

Bless this wonderful place and its tasty pancakes.

Thunder Bay has a large Finnish community and has for over a century. They built a community centre about a hundred years ago called the Finlandia Club and made the basement a co-op restaurant called the Hoito that is also very much still a community centre basement. It has been open as long as you have been alive. Well unless you are over 102… in which case good job using the Internet my wizened friend! We have been to the Hoito before, because we have been to Thunder Bay before. If you find yourself here, go to the Hoito. Anything else is foolish.

We seat ourselves, because community centre basement. We get Finnish pancakes, because of course we do. You can get them straight up or filled with many savoury or sweet tasties. Anne-Marie went with a stack of 3 syruped cakes and Dave tried the pork belly stuffed cake with bourbon syrup and a poached egg. Both were great, as we knew they would be. It was the Hoito in February, where most chairs have an enormous coat slung over the back aaaaalmost tipping them over backwards and there are coffee and pancakes and nice people who will bring them to you. Above all, it is both literally and figuratively warm and most certainly not outside, which this time of year is both starkly beautiful and very openly trying to kill you.

Our Pancake pilgrimage complete we returned to Barb’s where one of four perfectly maintained wheelie carts was pushed into service to get the laundry over to the bank of 8 big wall dryers. Once again we shot a few dollars in quarters at ourselves before our Barb returned to once again magic the quarters in for us, bless her. With our stuff spinning we took the opportunity to follow her over to her station on the other side of the forbidden change machine in the same establishment, which is an active video store. This should provide a hint as to the state of rural broadband internet access in many areas just outside the city. Oooh and they have the Old Dutch chips in the box! That’s right, chips in a box! However, within the box? 2 bags. Within the bags… chips. Tasty AND baffling!

We also could have rented a Toby Keith movie where he’s a cop.

Back to our dryers, which by the way cost 25 cents for 3 minutes which may seem steep until you hear that a load of entirely towels — TOWELS — was dry in 27 minutes. Our only explanations for such stunning drying power were excellent maintenance by Barb, witchcraft or most likely a little bit of both.

Dave, Anne-Marie and Dave’s mom split up and took up 3 of the 4 folding tables, which are fine. Just fine. Not TOO small but Bruno’s last week has sort of spoiled us with their pool table-sized folding counters. While folding we were drinking some very lovely teas from The International House of Tea (205 Algoma St S) just across the parking lot from Barb’s. They have many, many blends from around the world including lapsang souchong or smoked tea, which Dave is a big fan of because it tastes like sucking on a wet hoodie left next to a campfire. Anne-Marie believes it to be gross for precisely the same reason.

Our folding complete, we bid farewell to Barb’s and recommend it and the Hoito to your attention. We got back into the enormous truck and dashed back to Dave’s Parents’ place. There we hung out, ate ham and watched Knives Out, which was all lovely. Happy Family Day! Back in Toronto next week, we end again with some immaturely comical signage: