Myong Soo and Anna Kim opened their Gig Harbor dry cleaning business in 1993, and this year they celebrated their 20th anniversary with a second location – right across the parking lot.

Hi-Tech Cleaners, the Kims’ longtime business on Point Fosdick Drive, opened its second store Feb. 11 in the Safeway complex at Point Fosdick Square, just a few hundred feet from the original. The new location takes over a spot where, for a decade previously, another dry-cleaning business had competed with Hi-Tech.

“Everybody knew him as Mr. Oh,” Myong Soo Kim said of the owner of the former Pt. Fosdick Cleaners.

Oh retired from the business two years ago due to age and the scheduled construction of what has now become Point Fosdick Square. Kim said Oh moved back to his native South Korea to be with his family in a Seoul suburb.

Kim, who shares Oh’s Korean heritage, said he and his former rival were also good friends.

“He was our main competitor, but we were on good terms,” Kim said. “A lot of times competitors become enemies, but we didn’t see why it had to be that way.”

Kim and Oh would help one another when the machines at their nearby businesses were down, and
the two maintained a close relationship. When Oh closed his business, he directed many of his customers across the way to Hi-Tech.

After the remodel of Point Fosdick Square was complete, the development’s managers asked Kim if he would consider reviving his old friend’s business, under the Hi-Tech Cleaners umbrella. Kim said he’s taken in many of Oh’s former clients, and since he opened the second store, he has been calling others, reminding them that a dry cleaner is once again open in that location.

“A lot of people still ask me how Mr. Oh is doing,” Kim said. “I really wanted to carry on what he had established.”

The Kims moved to Gig Harbor in 1993 from Seattle, where Myong Soo worked as a chemical engineer and Anna as an accountant, specifically to establish a dry-cleaning business. Kim said he and his wife were interested in starting a stable, service-oriented small business.

Last year, Hi-Tech underwent a strict screening process from the national Clothing Care Council to become the region’s only cleaners certified by the organization.

“It’s a very integral part of one’s life,” Kim said of cleaning, adding that he and his wife also had considered starting a restaurant, a business that fulfills another basic service need. “We wanted to be involved in people’s lives. We wanted to work with people, and this is a people business.”

The Kims moved to town with a 1-year-old son and a fledgling business, but Kim said he’s grateful for the way Gig Harbor has supported his business and made his family feel comfortable.

Hi-Tech currently employees 15 people, with two more added after the opening of the second location. Kim said he’s stayed close with many of the employees he’s hired throughout the years, many of whom he’s stayed in touch with since they were teenagers who worked part-time behind the counter.

“We really see that we’re part of the community, helping raise these kids with a good work ethic and with the customer in mind,” Kim said.

Since the second location opened, Kim’s workday has moved across Point Fosdick Square’s large parking lot, while his wife has stayed behind to work at the original store. He says building up the second business and getting former customers Mr. Oh used to have, is a slow but steady process.

“I’m trying to compete with my wife,” he joked. “I’m no match at this point. But my conveyers are starting to fill up.”