Meet the couple who washes, dries and folds SU students’ laundry with care
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Ray Uon still remembers the first time a Syracuse University student walked through the doors of Caraway Cleaners in 2018.
Ray’s wife, Xai Uon, was sitting at the laundromat’s front counter when the then-SU sophomore Charlie Fleisher showed up at Caraway Cleaners to ask about a potential laundry service. Xai was happy to do business, offered him a 10% discount and got started on his clothes. Word of the couple’s business spread, and soon, Ray and Xai worked with Fleisher’s entire friend group.
“The next time he said, ‘I brought some of my buddies,’ and they just walked in,” Xai said. “Then he goes, ‘I’m gonna try to get you some of the ladies, too.’”
Eight years later, Ray and Xai now work with around 50 SU students every semester. The couple charges $1.50 per pound of laundry and takes cash and check only. Their business model is simple: Ray takes student orders by call or text, then he drives his Toyota minivan around SU’s campus every weekday for pick-up and drop-off.
Back at Caraway Cleaners, Xai manages other walk-in orders, then helps clean and fold student orders once Ray is back from campus.
Ray is known across campus as a reliable businessman and friendly face. He’s someone people like SU junior Victor Weiss feel comfortable leaving pounds of laundry with every week.
Driving down streets, Ray waves at familiar students, and they excitedly greet him. Sundays through Fridays, he makes his rounds, stopping at The 505 on Walnut, Campus Prime’s white apartments, The Standard at Syracuse, Castle Court and more.
After picking up from apartments, he’ll drive down Walnut Place to Alpha Epsilon Pi then down Marshall Street to Milton Hall. His network stretches across SU, with customers across all grades and in Greek life.
Ray Uon hands a pair of jeans to Syracuse University senior Charlotte Fine. Many students excitedly greet Ray during laundry pick-ups and drop-offs. Claire Zhang | Social Media Editor
Many are longstanding connections, and he’s worked with them from freshman through senior year.
“We’re almost like a second parent for them,” Ray said.
And the couple hasn’t spent a dime on advertising. Their clientele is built completely through word-of-mouth. Students pass along Ray’s phone number, some parents post about him in Facebook groups and he even has an “insider” — Terry Kent — who recommends Ray to clients like SU senior Charley Cole, whose residence Kent cleans.
Cole has worked with Ray since her freshman year, when she complained to Terry about Flint Hall’s “confusing and malfunctioning” washer/dryer combo units.
Cole continued using Ray her sophomore year, recommending him to friends and roommates in her sorority. Even when Cole studied abroad her junior year, she and Ray stayed in touch; Cole texted him updates of her travels.
Now back at SU, Cole and her roommates, including Camryn Levy, meet Ray outside their apartment twice a week, always happy to greet him.
Ray and Xai’s reliability makes all the difference, Cole said. Every load is delivered clean and folded with care. When picking up dirty clothes, students often ask Ray for help removing a stain from jeans or for a T-shirt to be washed delicately. He tells them it’s no problem and reminds them to text him what they need.
Ray said he knows how it feels to be on your own away from home, and he does his part in making sure his clients are taken care of.
“The only way to have a close connection with our kids is just to communicate with them,” Ray said. “You see them every day. You talk to them. You make them feel comfortable.”
As for working as a couple, Xai said she’s thankful Ray’s built a tight-knit circle on campus. She said their division of labor and combined work ethic pays off.
“I just love it. I figure if he puts 100% in it, I’m gonna put 100% in it. So that way we can get 200%,” Xai said. “He knows exactly what to do and I know exactly what to do. We love doing laundry anyway.”
Though Ray primarily interacts with students while driving through campus, some walk into Caraway Cleaners unannounced. Xai said she always welcomes conversation with students and misses being one herself when she hears their stories.
Ray Uon shakes Syracuse University student Victor Weiss’ hand after delivering his laundry. Ray drives around SU’s campus each weekday for laundry pick-ups and drop-offs. Claire Zhang | Social Media Editor
“They just make school fun,” Xai said. “They’re like, ‘I have a party I gotta go to. I need this tomorrow.’”
“They make us feel at home. That’s how we like it,” Ray said.
When students visit Caraway Cleaners, it reminds Ray and Xai of the first group they formed a special bond with. A framed photo of Fleisher, Keith Rubenstein and Max Egart, among others who graduated SU in 2021, hangs above a washing machine in Caraway Cleaners.
Xai calls them her “pioneers.” She and Ray wouldn’t have their current student network without them. It’s a mutually fond relationship; Rubenstein and Egart both said they still miss the couple five years after graduating.
Like Fleisher, Egart started working with Ray during his sophomore year in 2018. He went abroad his junior year, but he “never looked back” after meeting Ray and reached back out his senior year.
That’s when Rubenstein tagged along. At the time, Ray hadn’t begun driving to campus yet, so Egart, Rubenstein and their friends would make the weekly trip to Caraway Cleaners together.
From the jump, Rubenstein remembers bantering with Xai and talking about movies with Ray. He and his friends met the couple’s children and often talked about school and life. Egart and Fleisher bonded with Ray over their shared love of fishing, and they even went on a fly fishing trip to Pulaski with him their senior year. For them, visiting Caraway Cleaners became more than just doing laundry.
“They were almost like our little mini family for that semester,” Rubenstein said.
Before finding Ray, Egart and Rubenstein used the national service company Lazybones Laundry and Storage, but they found the interactions were far less personal and reliable. Egart said Ray and Xai’s trustworthiness and diligence speaks to the couple’s character and business.
He remembers forgetting cash in the pockets of his dirty clothes after dropping them off. When he’d pick them up, the money would be waiting in a labeled envelope on top of his clothes.
Bags of neatly folded clothes line the back of Ray Uon’s Toyota minivan. Ray said he makes sure clients are taken care of. Claire Zhang | Social Media Editor
To Ray and Xai, small things like that are no-brainers. They sympathize with students’ oftentimes hectic schedules, and Ray said he hopes to relieve any stress by taking good care of their laundry.
“My biggest motivation is that they get clean clothes to go to class,” Xai said. “Everybody cares about their image and what they look like and what they want to wear. So it’s like, just get it done for them.”
Ray and Xai also own Lodi Laundromat on Syracuse’s Northside. There, they work with Syracuse locals. Ray said it’s important to him that all people feel welcomed; he was once new to Syracuse, too.
Running both laundromats is a family ordeal for Ray and Xai. It’s simpler to keep it close-knit, Ray said.
Supporting a small business is a draw for students as well. Levy said her friends from other schools don’t have the same connection with off campus-community members as she does with Ray.
Forming relationships outside of the university is a special part of Syracuse, Rubenstein said. Ray and Xai exemplify the number of amazing Syracuse businesses, and Egart said students should seek relationships that aren’t solely transactional.
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And Xai, on the management side, would agree.
“Everything is not about the money,” Xai said. “It’s about the connection between you and them.”
Having lived in Syracuse since emigrating from Cambodia at age 13, Ray values what his community has given him. He and Xai make it a priority to give the same goodwill back.
“We know how it goes. Maybe a new kid that just arrived in our Syracuse area doesn’t know about Syracuse yet,” Ray said. “We just show them that we have nice people in Syracuse still. You have somebody who cares about you guys.”
