Why All Berlin Comes Out for the Wash

It was clear there was something odd about the bar-cum-diner on Kollwitzstrasse as soon as I noticed the huge piles of change stacked up next to the espresso machine.

For the rest, it was like hundreds of other east Berlin hangouts - contemporary decor, young bartender, smooth R'n'B playing in the background. But then there was that barely discernible, rumbling, churning sound from somewhere nearby. And an almost imperceptible odour of detergent.

I had chanced upon the first and oldest of Berlin's laundrette-cafes.

To one side of the bar was a glass door through which could be glimpsed a phalanx of glistening, stainless steel Miele washing machines.

Great efforts had been expended on making the washing area as elegant and welcoming as possible. There were paintings on the walls and, set into one corner, a sculpture made of what could have been washing machine parts. Above it was a screenshowing MTV.

Back at the bar, a strongly built guy who turned out to be a radio sports reporter was sipping beer as he waited for the cycle to end.

"I'm too lazy to buy a machine of my own," said Thomas. "Actually, I'd be too lazy to read the instructions. Here, if you have the time, you can sit and have a beer, and I'd always rather drink my beer when I do have time."

By the window, a woman on her own was reading a book with a glass of wine at her side. Over in a softly lit corner, two friends were chatting animatedly.

"What I like about this place is that there's always someone to explain the instructions to you," said Monika, a shopkeeper. "This is more personal, less austere. And in other laundrettes, you get down-and-outs who come in to get out of the cold."

The kernel of the idea was there in Hanif Kureishi's story My Beautiful Laundrette and the 1985 film that was made of it.

There are cafes alongside laundrettes on campsites and university campuses. A friend who knows Edinburgh told me there was a chain of cafes there sited next to laundrettes.

But I have never come across anything as integrated or stylish as the Holly's chain of washhouses in Berlin, whose bartender-waiters will happily mix you a cocktail while you wait for your underwear to be shaken then stirred.

Neither had the chain's founder, Erik von Falkenheim, whose business partner, a scaffolding contractor, built the first of them when he was 26.

"I was in the States on holiday last year and the year before, and I looked, but I didn't find anything similar," he said.

He and his partner have been opening branches at the rate of one a year. Each of the five establishments is tailored to the style of its neighbourhood.

The Kollwitzstrasse Holly's is in Prenzlauer Berg, which is student/artist/young professional territory, and looks a bit like an Italian bar-restaurant.

Elsewhere, in middle-class Wilmersdorf and working-class Wedding, the chain's washhouses are modelled on American diners with red leather seats, black-and-white floor tiles and lots of chrome fittings and neon lighting.

You can stay until 11 at night, if you care to.

"About 30% of the customers don't even bring in any washing," said Guido, the bartender in Kollwitzstrasse. "They just come to drink and smoke and have a chat."

Sometimes, of course, one thing leads to another.

"I don't actually know of any marriages that have started in a Holly's," said Erik von Falkenheim. "But one of our employees did fall in love with one of our customers, and now they're living together."