Emma Baum

By Emma Baum | April 4, 2024

It’s eight p.m. in a High Street laundromat and the swish of the washing machines and the hum of the driers are barely audible over the dissonant chords of the latest original song from a Columbus-based punk pop band. An old man opens the front door, the squelch of his shoes against the scuffed tiles evidence of the spring downpour that had turned the now-clear sky thick with swollen gray clouds earlier in the evening. 

The man crosses the large, open room, dodging strewn instrument cases and the swinging legs of liner-lidded twenty-somethings as he heads for a machine at the back bank of washers. When asked for an interview, he points to a near-invisible stain on the collar of the white button-down shirt he has procured from his drawstring bag and smiles as he shakes his head no. He empties the rest of the bag into the washer, closes the lid, starts the machine, and walks out the front door, still smiling. 

After seven p.m. seven days a week, people washing clothes at Dirty Dungarees Laundromat and Bar are far outnumbered by the musicians and fans of the central Ohio DIY music scene. Born from the 1970s punk rock scene, a wall of windows to the right of the front door reveals the draw for DIY culture’s modern followers: at one end of the space sits an old-school bar, complete with a stained glass pendant light dangling above each booth; at the other is a stage, sparse and dark and dictated more by the audience’s collective imagination than by elevation or any clear marcation. 

“It literally is like day and night. It’s just normal, average, everyday people doing their laundry in the day,” said Esther Brodess, who has worked at the laundromat and bar for five months. “But then everything flips over at about like six, seven, eight. And it becomes what Dirty Dungarees is known for.”

What Dirty Dungarees is known for – being a hotspot for heavy music in the area and creating a close-knit community between employees, musicians, and fans – is a reputation they’ve earned quickly. While the business has been open and operating as a laundromat and bar since 1978, it wasn’t until the last decade that they traded the pool tables that once lived at the far end of the bar for live music. That doesn’t mean the laundromat doesn’t bring back memories for those who once frequented it, though.

“My parents went to [The Ohio State University] in the 80s,” said a woman at the bar who identified herself as Maggie. “And I told them ‘I was moving around your campus and I watched this show at this place called Dirty Dungarees.’ And she said, ‘That place is still open?’”

In recent years, the financial strain of running a small neighborhood business has been hard on Dirty Dungarees. The laundromat and bar was bought by a new owner in spring of 2023, and in August of that year, new staff members were brought on, including Brodess, who handles music bookings and social media for the business, in addition to bartending on Thursdays. 

“I guess that’s why I started working here,” said Brodess, recalling how they went from a Dirty Dungarees customer to an employee. “I was like, ‘Oh man, shit’s about to fall through.’ When I got on here, there were no shows booked for months. And like now, six months later, we’re almost booked up.”

Bands from as far as California, Washington, and even Finland have reached out to book a show at Dirty Dungarees, though the majority of the groups that frequent the venue are local to the central Ohio area. Employees like Brodess, and longtime customers, pride the laundromat and bar on being an authentic and age-accessible option in the region’s DIY music scene. 

“It’s a good doorway for people that are starting in the [DIY music] scene,” said a member of the Hilliard-based band Ink. Dirty Dungarees is currently the band’s main venue. “It’s all age entry, you can step out if you want to, you can relax if you need to, and it’s also pretty much free to come here, which is nice.” 

While customers are asked to show an ID when purchasing a drink at the bar, there is no age limit or mandatory entrance fee at the door, though a five to ten dollar donation is recommended. 

It isn’t just members, new and old, of the music scene that are welcomed into Dirty Dungarees. The laundromat and bar has also partnered with the Columbus-based nonprofit Goldheart Outreach to provide short-term assistance to unhoused individuals in the area. 

Where many other businesses turn away unhoused people in search of a place to warm up, use the restroom, and charge their phone, the staff at Dirty Dungarees makes an effort to treat these individuals , many of whom live in camps near the laundromat and bar, as they would any other customer. Heather FitzGerald, the founder of Goldheart Outreach, sometimes drops by the business and leaves quarters with the staff to pay for the laundry fees of any unhoused person who comes in. 

In January, after a few particularly cold days of weather, FitzGerald, whose nonprofit is the only organization in the Columbus area that provides transportation to warming centers, found that the centers were at maximum capacity. Along with a small group of volunteers, she arranged for the basement of a local church to be used as a temporary shelter. Faced with housing 100 people a day for seven days, FitzGerald turned to Dirty Dungarees to wash the dozens of blankets that had been donated by members of the community. 

With leftover donation money and some help from Dirty Dungarees staff, FitzGerald transformed a usually tedious task into a memorable moment of community. She tasked some of the unhoused individuals sheltering in the church with manning the washers and dryers, and worked with the owner to hand out two drink tickets to each person. A pizza delivery and the use of the bar’s speaker system turned the chore into a full-blown party.

“That’s the biggest thing that [Dirty Dungarees does] besides all the wonderful stuff of just making us feel comfortable,” FitzGerald said of the relationship Goldheart Outreach and the laundromat and bar have created. “It’s the one place we can go and feel welcome and feel like normal people.”

For FitzGerald, helping unhoused people feel like everyone else, even if only for a few hours, is a crucial part of outreach to the community. 

“When the light turns green, just give him a little wave as you drive by and make eye contact with him,” FitzGerald said of the most significant thing people can do when interacting with an unhoused individual. “Because that makes you feel like a human being. A lot of people do not know what it feels like when you haven’t been hugged in months. Everywhere you go, you’re not supposed to be. And so if you can just look at them in their eyes, it’s just such a human connection moment.”

The Dirty Dungarees staff doesn’t just look these people in the eyes. They pull out a chair at the table and invite them to stay a while. It’s what they do for everyone who comes through their door. 

“[The mission of Dirty Dungarees is] to provide a space that isn’t trying to take advantage of people and to just revel in community and creativity,” said Brodess. 

As if to demonstrate their point, a horned woman with blue lipstick appears out of the crowd and leans over the head of the table to chat. She introduces herself as the bassist in Brodess’ band: in addition to being a former customer and a current employee, Brodess can proudly list ‘musician’ on their list of Dirty Dungarees credentials. 

Each night’s show typically features a set from three or four bands, and in between performances, audience members often wander into the laundromat room to use the restroom or fill a 50 cent cup from the bar with ice water from a dented yellow Igloo cooler. On his way to the parking lot for a cigarette, one man stops to retrieve his wide-brimmed fedora from where he stashed it in an out of order drier before the previous set. As he exits the propped back door, one hand groping his pockets for an open pack or a lighter, the front door swings open. 

The old man is back, drawstring bag in hand. He grins as he asks two black-lace-clad teens to move from where they are perched on top of the machines holding his freshly washed shirts, and they smile back as they comply, hopping off the steel surface only to hoist themselves up again, on two washing machines on the opposite side of the bank. 

In the heart of Columbus, in a laundromat that is also a bar and a bar that is also a music venue, community isn’t just being made. It’s happening, and everyone is invited along for the ride.