Our story

Washing the D.C. area
since 1958.

Before the interstates were finished. Before the Beltway. Three generations before today, there was Mr Wash.

The Harris family

It started with seventy pairs of hands.

Bob Harris opened his first car wash in 1958 in Prince George’s County, Maryland. More than seventy employees washed every car by hand. No tunnels, no machines. Just people who cared about a clean car.

Bob believed two things: treat the customer’s car like your own, and treat your people well enough that they stay. Both beliefs stuck. His son Steve and grandson Nathan run the company today, and most of our managers started out drying cars on the line.

Sixty-eight years in, we’re still local, still family owned, and still never a franchise.

Est. 1958 A freshly washed car rolling out under the Mr Wash sign in Tysons
Milestones

A few big moments.

  1. 1958

    The first wash opens

    Bob Harris opens his first car wash in suburban Maryland, where a crew of more than seventy washes every car by hand.

  2. 1983

    First all-cloth soft wash in the D.C. area

    Mr Wash becomes the first car wash operator in the area to adopt an all-cloth, soft, brushless wash system. Nearly every wash in the region follows. It becomes the standard.

  3. 2018

    Mr Wash goes to the beach

    After a million-dollar renovation of a legacy local car wash on Hebron Road, Mr Wash opens in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

  4. 2023

    Location number eleven

    The new Tysons wash opens on Leesburg Pike in December, our fourth location in Fairfax County, and celebrates with a week of free washes.

In the community

Local means showing up.

We live where we wash. That comes with responsibilities we actually enjoy.

Free washes for educators

We’ve thanked teachers and school staff with free washes at back-to-school time.

Grand openings give back

We opened Tysons with a week of free washes for the whole neighborhood.

Promoted from within

Most of our management team started in part-time roles on the line.

Sixty-eight years of practice makes shiny.

Come see what three generations of car care feels like.