Mr. Rafael’s Cleaners & Tailor

I really used to love this place, but they’gone downhill in the last few months. I have called THREE times in the last two months for laundry delivery after nearly a year of doing laundry there with not an issue. Two times (I was home and waiting for them the WHOLE time) they never showed up. When I called they said he’d be there in 20 minutes… no show, and then when I called the next morning, they said that they tried to buzz but no one answered. The buzzer on my door works perfectly… they do not call, they simply just do not show up. This morning, I called at 7:25 am, and the man on the phone informed me pickup would show up around 8 am… I waited until 8:15 am and then called again, and was informed that they were «too busy» to pick up my laundry. They had not called me to inform me of this at all, and from the sounds of it, they were not going to call me to inform me they weren’t coming. The likelihood that I will use them in the future is low. They have great prices, but horrible customer service. Sometimes my laundry bag is too heavy for me to carry the seven blocks… I guess I’ll switch to a more expensive service with higher reliability.

TRULY TOP NOTCH IN EVERY WHICH WAY!
Rafael is classy, punctual, reasonable and most of all does the BEST job of any cleaners in NYC. I have worked with many dry cleaners and tailors and I will follow them anywhere in New York. They are total professionals and honest and lovely to deal with to boot. If ever they are concerned in any way about any article of clothing they will contact you and make sure they address it, better safe than sorry. THE BEST to deal with.

Small shop located on the mezzanine, so look up when you’re looking for this place.
Got my dress cleaned ($ 14) and also had a 25% off coupon in the mail. It came back great, no complaints.

I had a dress shirt laundered and pressed for $ 2! The workers here are really nice and professional. I have no complaints about the service.

I appreciate this business for trying to keep their customers coming back and to address their concerns when raised. Thank you for that.

Raphael gets the job done. Appreciative that it’s open late for me till 7:30pm week nights.

Excellent Tailoring. The tailor at this location will have your off-​the rack looking bespoke! Good value as well. I really appreciate the periodic specials on tailoring (e.g. 10% off for the month of February). Cheers!

I am delighted with the work they do in Rafael’s cleaners, my suits, shirts and more, look so good and very neatly pressed with a cordial and friendly service the best I’ve seen,
Since I been working in the city, Rafael Cleaner’s had resolve some of my predicaments when i have meetings at work.
Once i had a meeting at work and my shirt was really wrinkled and in minutes was well ironed, thank you so much to the employee Rafael, which resolved my problem in a trice.
I’m very happy to have this cleaners around my work, I have no more than gratitude for you guys Thanks !!!

This dry cleaners is great. Great business workers are nice. Gave them many clothes to alternate and they were finished with it very fast with everything just the way I asked. Never had a problem with the cashier nor the tailor. Fast service and Great prices. Will definitely come back here again. :)

Me gusta mucho este lugar por que dan un buen servicio las personas que trabajan son muy eficiente ase unos días me compre un bestido y lo lleve a arreglar y me atendió el señor cozme y estoy muy agradecida por que me usó un buen trabajo yo le recomiendo este lugar como uno de los mejores visitarlo y pregunte por Cosme no se arrepentirás

This place is the worst! I’ve been coming here for over a year and the quality has continued to decline. I’m a women who wears the same blouses to work every week and two of my blouses came back 2 sizes smaller! All women know how their clothes fit/​fall on their body and this place shrunk my tops. The owner is unresponsive and I’m considering reporting them to the BBB. Over them!

Poor management. The owner has left me with a major issue which has cost me over $ 2200 in damaged clothes.
I was a customer for over 2 years. They tried to use an excuse of weight gain when my suits were shrunk after dry cleaning.
The custom tailor had the original measurements. I had one of the suits re-​measured and it was 1 inch shorter on the jacket and ¾ inch shorter on the pants.
Additionally some of my shirts were shrunk. They won’t take responsibility for any of the damages and deny shrinking clothes that they dry cleaned.
I was told by other people in my building they too had bad experiences.
In reply to management comment: would you like me to post an official letter from the tailor with the measurements proving that it was not weight gain but in fact shrinkage?
Ive called you 8 times with no response from you. Now the general public will know how to get you to respond. If you have interest in reconciling you have my number.

Rafael’s dry cleaner is terrific! This place did an outstanding job with my clothes, both dry cleaning and laundry. Rafael is very flexible about delivery and he make sure you have a pleasant experience when you are a costumer; he even offers you discounts and gives you credit if you are not satisfied ! I LOVE this place! I found them a month ago and have been impressed with the professionalism, timeliness, and quality of the work done. WELL DONE RAFAEL

I would give zero stars if possible. I have been a loyal customer for about 5 years with Rafeal and probably use 1x a week for basics. shirts or blazers. This morning I was returned a blazer that smelled of cigarette smoke and had lint all over it. I spoke with Rafeal himself for about 10 minutes and refused to give me credit of $ 5.50 for the blazer. His final response was «if you want to cancel the account I will do it right now» So much for being a loyal customer.

Cheapest dry cleaner in the FIDI. $ 2 for shirts washed an pressed, I live in BKLN, but work on Wall st and bring my shirt here because it’s a good deal. The only reason not to give 5 stars is that once some of my shirts came back with their buttons cracked.

Excellent service, and very quick turn around on dry cleaning and laundry services.
They have fixed holes in pants, tailored suits and pants for me and are as reliable as they come.

so far so good, got a bunch of stuff dry cleaned and pressed. High points are they take credit cards and free delivery to your building.

EDIT: Someone who works at the dry cleaner wrote me that the price for cleaning the blouse was $ 5.75, not $ 12.00. Since it was more than two years ago and I do not remember, I agreed to add this line. He also offered me a generous discount and $ 20 in credit, and asked me to understand that the atrocious rudeness of the staffer was due to an emergency. I am not without compassion, but since I didn’t cause the emergency, and I returned the following day, by which time the emergency was past, I don’t see why the appalling rudeness to me was caused by the previous days’ emergency. Working late on a Friday night is not exactly a picnic, my job is stressful enough, and having to return on a Saturday, then being bitched at by a dry cleaner for «waiting until the last minute» although I was there well before the closing hours posted on the doors, is just not something I can overlook as an «emergency.» I would rather pay full price for courtesy than deal with rudeness on a regular basis, despite the discount. However the person who works there did try to make it right by offering the discounts. Ultimately, it’s more important to me to avoid being hassled, to have my clothing dry cleaned when promised, and to have business hours posted on the door honored. Without those three things, discounts don’t help me. But I give them credit for trying.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
AVOID! WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER! Unless you do not care when you get your garments back! I needed my blouse to be dry-​cleaned to wear for a television appearance on Saturday. They promised me it’d be done by Friday. I told them it was extremely important; it’s not every day that I am filmed for television. I took note of their hours — open until 7pm. I also called on Friday morning to confirm what time they close and was told «7pm.» When I got there at 6:40, they were already closed. No note on the door, no explanation. They just felt like going home early on Friday. I had to come all the way back on Saturday morning, even though I live nowhere near this dry cleaner! (I only used them because they are close to my office.) They wasted hours of my time because they could not keep to their own business hours. The MINIMUM I expect from any business is that they will keep the hours posted on their own sign. When I asked the man at the register why they closed early, he replied that it was an emergency. I asked why they couldn’t have posted a note on the door so at least I wouldn’t be so angry. Emergencies happen, I’m not totally heartless. But when I asked him why no note, he glared at me and said, «People always wait until the last minute. No one is every happy, people complain about everything.» Well, if you set your shop’s hours to be until 7PM and someone arrives at 6:40, you can’t be angry at them for «waiting until the last minute.» It’s not like I wanted to wait until «the last minute» but I had to work late — hardly an uncommon occurrence in the Financial District! If he had offered me a discount or even a simple apology, I might have been appeased, but all I got was an angry rant about me being a procrastinator. I had to announce in front of his other customers that I will never bring ANYTHING there to be dry-​cleaned again. As far as the actual cleaning, they do an okay job, no complaints there, except for they are extremely expensive. Whatever price they might quote if you ask, it’ll turn out to be $ 10 more when you actually drop off your garment. My plain white cotton blouse was $ 12 which is pretty steep considering many places will dry-​clean a plain cotton shirt for $ 4 – 7. So they are twice as expensive and ten times are rude as any other dry cleaners, they’re do not keep to the hours posted on their own sign, and they hassle customers who dare to arrive too late in the day as they clearly want to knock off early on Friday nights. I wish I could have given them zero stars. AVOID!

I haven’t used these guys for alterations, so I can only speak of the dry cleaning, which I’ve used twice.
Prices are slightly cheaper than the last cleaner I used (which turned out to be terrible). Rafael is quite friendly over the phone. Of course there’s a little accent, but transactions seem to go smoothly enough. The delivery and pickup guy speaks nearly no English, but is still a very nice guy. I hear I’m not supposed to tip but I do anyway.
The dry-​cleaning process is very fast, which was a fantastic change from my last cleaner. (same day if you give the clothes over before 9AM or so). I read somewhere that this is because Rafael runs his own cleaners vs other places outsourcing.
Clothes are always folded nicely and in hangers. I’ve only tried two cleaners so I’m not sure what others do, but Rafael’s has this very neat way the shirt sleeves are clipped in front of the shirt so they hang flat and don’t wrinkle during transit. Awesome.
Rafel’s loses one star for my sweaters: there was a very heavy dry-​cleaning smell afterwards that still isn’t gone after airing them out for two days.
All in all, a satisfactory cleaner and one I’ll continue using until something goes wrong. :)

I would avoid this place if AT ALL possible.
Recently had a very unpleasant experience where I brought in a pink silk blouse with a small ink stain. I asked them to remove the stain, and when I got the blouse back, the ink stain was not only STILL THERE, but there was a large WHITE SPOT where the cleaners had taken out the color in the fabric, rendering it completely damaged.
When I complained, the person on the phone rudely told me that the item was damaged to begin with because it had an ink stain already and that I wasn’t entitled to be compensated (I had only worn it ONCE).

The absolute best.
First of all, yes, there IS a Mr. Rafael. He’s a very nice Russian speaking gentleman in his 50’s, about 5’6″, and often hangs out in the shop for an hour or two during the middle of the day. If you see him, say hi, and if he sees that you know clothes, he might give you a deal on some tailoring work (more on that later).
I’ve been coming here since the early 1990’s, when it was run mostly by Mr. Rafael’s wife, and his youngest daughter when school was out. I started with just dry cleaning — always flawless, with competitive prices, but here is the most important thing: they own a dry cleaning plant themselves, and they do all their work in-​house.
Why does this make a difference? Read some of the horror story reviews for other dry cleaners in the neighborhood and you’ll see: stuff comes back wrinkled, fabric having that sheen from being pressed in a press that was way too hot for the fabric type, paper tags stapled directly onto clothing, even silk dresses, stuff getting lost — ALL BECAUSE MANY OF THE PLACES IN THE CITY HAVE STARTED TO SUBCONTRACT TO OTHER COMPANIES.
How do I know this? In one of the few instances when I’ve strayed from this shop, to try out a place just across the street from me, I saw dry cleaning being delivered to that other dry cleaner with an invoice from a Chinatown cleaner. I have used places in Chinatown for dry cleaning before, and stopped because those guys do not take very good care of my clothes (see the problems I listed above). And as subcontractors who never have to deal with customers directly, they take even less care with the clothes.
But Mr. Rafael’s would never do that to you because he owns his own dry cleaning plant. They are very good at what they do and proud of it.
And then there is the tailoring.
I eventually started to have them hem and/​or cuff my pants, put in buttons, stuff like that. When I started to have them «adjust» off the rack suits to actually fit me, it was a life changing experience.
Guys — you do not know what it is to wear a suit until you have worn one that actually fits, and the chances of a suit fitting a man perfectly off the rack is about the same as being hit by a meteor. Yes, it is not cheap, but once you wear it, you’ll feel and see the difference. For guys who are built better than most, trust me it will let you make the most of your assets.
Sorry I can’t speak to their skills with ladies’ clothing, but for men’s clothing, whether it be suits, coats, shirts, and pants, or anything else, they have made my wardrobe a thing of beauty for the past 20 years, and I will be going back for more so long as I live close enough to get my clothes to them.