Excel Dry Cleaners

Excel Dry Cleaners: How a well-known Dublin family business is fighting back – and giving back - in the face of the pandemic The day Geraldine Mooney became a business owner she walked over six kilometres from Dublin city-centre to her home in Finglas with somebody else’s vacuum cleaner on her back. She was broke and in need of a new hoover. But the arduous trek home was just the first difficult steps in a journey that has seen Geraldine and her family build up one of the city’s best known and most successful dry-cleaning businesses. Unlike many rags to riches stories that begin with a broke but determined entrepreneur who is driven to succeed against all the odds, Geraldine candidly admits she never even wanted to own her own business. Back in October 1995, the then 30-year-old young mother of four children (who were aged between four and 13 years old) just wanted a part-time job so she could help pay the bills that were beginning to clog up her letterbox. Then fate intervened. Geraldine had only been working at Excel Dry Cleaners on Dame Lane in the city-centre for a few months when her then employers landed the bombshell that were quitting the business for personal reasons. But, they told her, she was welcome to take over the business if she thought she could come up with the cash. Geraldine’s mind raced. She never dreamed of owning her own business, but the thought certainly appealed to her. Geraldine knew the dry-cleaning business, she was quick learner, a natural salesperson and she had built up a great rapport with all of Excel’s clients