Bronco Laundry Shuts Down After 20 years of Service

Company reaches dead end with university policies

After 20 years of operation, Santa Clara’s student-run laundry delivery service shut down its business last quarter. 

A week before Bronco Laundry—a subsidiary of Bronco Student Services (BSS)—began its operations for this academic year, Auxiliary Services Associate Vice President Robin Reynolds informed the company that the administration could no longer provide student employees access to residence halls due to safety and security concerns. 

This announcement upended Bronco Laundry’s operations as student employees could not bring the laundry bags from residence halls to the local laundromat. 

“For the past 20 years, the administration has been granting us access to these dorms for a limited time window,” BSS general manager and sophomore Farhan Billah said. “We’ve never had an issue.” 

BSS had already advertised its laundry service to incoming first-year students and their parents at the Welcome Weekend Vendor Fair. 

Bronco Laundry was marketed on the student-run radio station KSCU’s newsletter. Fifty students from nine residence halls had already paid for its services.

The company refunded its customers’ quarterly and annual payments, which totaled over $25,000. 

The student employee who delivered customers’ laundry bags was laid off. 

Bronco Laundry provided free laundry service for a student throughout the fall quarter as he suffered from physical disabilities, a service it’ll continue to provide through winter quarter. 

According to BSS officials, the university’s announcement came out of left field. 

Reynolds stressed that prior to Fall 2019, the administration had already expressed safety concerns about BSS employees’ access to residence halls. 

Throughout Weeks 1 and 2 of Fall Quarter, BSS officials negotiated with the administration to salvage Bronco Laundry. 

They proposed that student desk assistants (DA’s) at residence halls open entrances for student employees. They then could pick up laundry in the common areas. 

Reynolds said that would be against security protocols as DAs cannot open doors of residence halls for people. 

“It’s not top of mind for me—students having laundry service getting picked up and dropped off for them—because there’s a laundry service at every single building,” Reynolds said. 

BSS proposed another alternative: to establish substitute drop-off and pick-up points on campus. But school officials could not find any suitable locations. 

Reaching an impasse, Bronco Laundry shut down its operations. 

“It’s just sad that it has to go,” said owner of BSS and Santa Clara alum Arthur Gallanter. 

Gallanter and co-owner Anthony Prieto were Santa Clara sophomores when they bought BSS from an alumni in 2010, a company that offered laundry and storage services. 

They expanded the business by launching Bronco Delivery, delivering food from Benson to students living in residence halls (Bronco Delivery shutdown in 2014 as Bon Appetit did not renew their agreement). 

After Gallanter and Prieto graduated from Santa Clara, students managed the day-to-day operations of BSS, passing the baton every two to three years to new general managers. 

“It allows us—as we go into our professional years—to learn and develop and teach these students to run our business,” Gallanter said.

As Bronco Laundry has shuttered, BSS officials hope that the new quarter will beckon a fresh start in mending their long-standing relationship with the administration. 

“Although we are disheartened by Bronco Laundry’s closing,” BSS general managers and Santa Clara students Billah, Ross Urbina and former general manager Jack Woepke wrote in a joint statement, “We are determined to create a productive dialogue with the administration so that we can find a way for Bronco Laundry to operate in the future.” 

Contact Nicholas Chan at nchan1@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.