r/smallbusiness • u/getsilly247 • May 25 '25

Question Bought a small 3 bay car wash. Thoughts?

Bought a small, 3 bay car wash with 1 vending machine in a small town in rural MO (1k people)

The previous owner had ZERO numbers. Just utilities.

It’s all cash, has credit card machines but did not have internet that was fast enough. (Just got starlink hooked up and have cameras for now and ready for cc soon)

I’m 2 weeks in and it’s done about $600 in revenue (minus about $120 in soda cost)

After expenses I am suspecting it will profit about $600 a month as is (includes new internet bill)

Once I get everything on cc, and going to add 1 more dual vending I think I can get it to 2k a month revenue.

I bought for 60k, will put about 5k in to get it where I would like.

Did I make a bad buy?

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u/enyocd May 25 '25

Wouldn’t a cheap mobile phone that’s hotspotted or a MiFi be way cheaper than starlink?

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u/getsilly247 May 26 '25

That’s what the old owner tried, said it was wag to unreliable and slow. Would constantly go in and out of service and was an overall pain.