When the late Orestes Morales immigrated to Miami from Cuba in 1971, he just wanted to open his own business.
He opened Mary’s Coin Laundry and Café — and 35 years later his grandchildren are working at the same store he built, which has become an important neighborhood fixture. His portrait hangs above a doorway in the laundromat.
Although many 24/7 businesses limited their hours or even shut down after the pandemic, Mary’s resumed their all-day service once restrictions were lifted.
“I don't care about money,” said Ralph Morales, Orestes’s son and the owner of the laundromat. “What makes me, is what you leave behind. That’s what I care about.”
The laundromat and café sits in Miami’s Silver Bluff neighborhood, just north of Coconut Grove. Customers can clean their clothes inside the business and order food and coffee at a ventanita, which has a few tables outside.
Ralph oversees the laundromat part, and his sister Mary, the store’s namesake, owns the café. He loves his job, but he says not easy.
“The hardest part of this is being able to … be here whatever time when there’s a problem,” Ralph said. “When one of those machines breaks down at three o’clock in the morning, I have to get up and come and do it. No matter what.”
It was Ralph’s idea to make the business 24/7 in 1991. He said running the store meant sacrificing time with his three daughters.
“When they wanted to go to the beach and I had something to do, [their] mom used to go with them,” he said. “I changed diapers and what not, but there was a timeframe where I had to just dedicate time to my business in order to sustain and maintain the family. So I was out of the picture for certain things, and I do regret that.”
The next generation
Although Ralph has thought about selling the shop, he feels a duty to protect the store’s legacy and the community it's built. Vicky Sanchez, Ralph’s niece and Mary’s daughter, agrees. She grew up getting breakfast at the ventanita before school and helping around the store, but recently she started managing the store on her own.
“They used to have these plastic chairs that my grandfather would bring out at night and it would be a group of 12 to 15 older men. They’d sit there and have their coffee after dinner, and their wives would come and they’d walk around the block for exercise with my grandma,” she said. “I hope that continues with another generation. It’s really special.”
Some of the regulars have known the family for decades, like Carmen Lopez, who’s been washing her clothes at Mary’s for 32 years.
“What I like the most about here is the store’s service and the family that runs it. I admire them a lot,” she said, in Spanish. “My son is in the army and he always asks me how [Ralph] is doing.”
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Vicky also works part-time as a nurse, but she started picking up less shifts at the hospital and more shifts at Mary’s to help out her aging parents.
“If my parents have doctor’s appointments, we wouldn’t really have anyone else to cover if not us,” she said. “I told them, ‘Look, I don’t need you to retire full-time, but I need you to go at least from seven days to maybe five. Give me two.’”
Her uncle is really proud of her.
“My god, it’s such a great feeling to be able to see somebody with such a grateful heart to not let what the family has built demolished,” Ralph said.
Adapting to the times
Vicky said the store is constantly testing new items to keep up with what customers want. When her mother introduced the pan con bistec in the early 2000s, it quickly became one of their most popular items. She remembers when the store first started selling Red Bull, and recently, they sold Celsius Energy Drinks for the first time.
“My dad’s like, ‘People don’t drink that, do they?” And I’m like, ‘Papi, they drink them. If they don’t want a cafecito, they can get a Celsius,’” Vicky said. “We just notice what’s going on and what the community wants. And I think that’s how it’s gonna continue being.”
Ralph has seen the store since day one, and he feels a duty to be there for the neighborhood, just like how the customers have been there for him.
“I’ve got to give back what they’ve given me. That’s my main focus,” he said.
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