Like San Francisco, Toronto’s first known laundromat is thought to have been established by a Chinese immigrant named Sam Ching, in 1878. In downtown Toronto, on Adelaide Street, Ching owned a hand laundry business. This earned him the honor of being the first Canadian of Chinese descent to be listed in Toronto’s city directory. 

Partially as a result of entrepreneurial drive and largely as a result of systematic racism and exclusion from skilled professions and union jobs, many Chinese immigrants to Toronto opened laundry businesses. This profession was considered low-class and menial. However, the laundry business also proved to be an opportunity because it required little English fluency and minimal capital investment. 

Fast forward to modern-day Toronto, and there are over 100 laundromats in business, and many entrepreneurial immigrants that now call the city home. In fact, more than 52% of Toronto’s residents were born outside of Canada, making it the North American city with the highest proportion of foreign-born residents. Linguistically, more than 160 languages are spoken with 200+ ethnicities also represented. 

Fundamentally, the city is a melting pot with a highly-educated, professional workforce. Comparable to its American counterparts of Seattle and New York, Toronto is a hub of finance, technology, law, and healthcare. 

More specifically, about 50% of its population has a university degree and about 19% has a graduate degree. Rinse has found that professionals with demanding work schedules often value convenience, from food delivery to laundry and dry cleaning delivery. Rinse’s eco-friendly laundry and dry cleaning services help Torontonians take back their time to use as they see fit.