New dry cleaner business a following in family footsteps – and a love story
A new dry cleaners has opened in the Publix Plaza on Hancock Bridge Parkway. For one owner, it is the following in her family footsteps, for both, it is a love story.
The owners are Lana Dosis and JR Harriman.
Dosis is an expert in all concerning cleaning, alterations and repairs. She comes from a long line of tailors. “My father was a tailor, and so was my grandfather. My father actually learned the craft in the Army; there he made custom-made suits in Greece. Then he later came here to America, and worked in the sewing business.”
With 20 years of experience, she said it is not only her heritage, but something she truly enjoys. “I sew – and crochet and knit – in my time off.”
A Cape Coral resident, she connected with friend and now business partner Harriman within the last several years after a nearly 18-year friendship that began when they both lived in New Jersey.
They were always great friends, Harriman said, both with a secret crush that they never told the other about. “Life kept us apart,” he said, until one day when Dosis contacted Harriman through Facebook.
“You go though a lot of relationships through the years, but this was really right,” he said.
When the two decided this was the relationship they had both been looking for, Harriman quickly put his house on the market and made the decision to move from New Jersey to Cape Coral to be with her.
He now shares his life with Dosis and her three daughters, Gabrielle, Amanda and Sophia in Cape Coral. So strong was the drive to be together, he said, they decided to start a business together.
With Dosis’ talent and Harriman’s managerial and customer service skills, they hope the new cleaners will be a popular place with both North Fort Myers and Cape Coral residents who work in the area, as it is on the border of the two areas.
“I liked this location,” Dosis said. “It’s near the busy Publix grocery store and a nice plaza.”
She will be in-house all day Mondays for alterations and fittings, and do tailoring through the week. Harriman will man the counter during business hours.
On display in the shop is an antique Singer sewing machine. “It is an 80-year-old Singer,” she said. “I bought it at an estate sale, it had been in an attic. It has the pedal, but then we motorized it. I use it, along with other newer machines.”
Sunshine Cleaners offers professional dry cleaning and alterations/repairs services, along with laundering shirts, cleaning and preserving wedding gowns, working with leather and suede items and comforters and draperies.
“We use only the highest quality additives in our dry cleaning solvent to keep whites white and colors bright,” Harriman said. “All garments are inspected twice before returning them to the customer to ensure that quality has not been compromised.”
There will be monthly specials. Right now, they are $1.69 for men’s laundered shirts, $5 off any dry cleaning order of $20 or more and when you hem two pairs of pants, you get the third free.
Sunshine Cleaners is located at 4805 Hancock Bridge Pkwy, Unit 112 in the Publix Shopping Center, at the corner of Orange Grove Boulevard and Hancock.
The hours are Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the phone number is 652-0001.