A family business, here to stay

Rajen and Rita Patel at Hi-Tech Cleaners EVAN WILLIAMS / FLORIDA WEEKLY Late on a cold weekday morning, a customer burst in the front door of Hi- Tech Cleaners with an armful of white shirts and a blue blazer. Owners Rita Patel and her husband Rajen, both barely 40 and youthful in their colorful sweaters, were there as usual, as one or the other has been since they took over the business 12 years ago.

That decision helped create the life they were planning for their daughters, Rhea and Ruchi.

“We were looking for a business where we could be home on time, and take long weekends,” Mr. Patel said.

At the time, they were living on Florida’s east coast. Mr. and Mrs. Patel had met at a college in India, where they graduated with degrees in microbiology. And after moving to the United States, they had also spent time in New Jersey, where she studied physical therapy, and he opened a cigar shop. But Mr. Patel was helping a friend run a dry cleaner in Port St. Lucie, and discovered it was work that could benefit his family.

They searched for a dry cleaner in Boca Raton and other places before taking over for the previous owners in Fort Myers in a retail plaza at Metro Parkway and Winkler Avenue.

Since then, they have kept countless blouses and suit jackets free of stains, and endured many summers. The temperature sometimes climbs to 120 degrees in the back room on hot days. They’ve watched the area around them, what used to contain fields, become developed.

“It used to be that every time there was a brush fire we could see it,” Mr. Patel said, nodding south toward a formerly empty area, now filled with apartments and businesses.

Many of their customers were office workers and real estate agents who now come in once a month instead of once a week, or not at all, as they lost work because of the recession. The shop is quieter now, Mr. Patel said. But after being in one location for 12 years, he estimates that regular customers make up 35 percent of his business.

“A lot of them will stand here (at the front counter) and tell us all the little details of their health and family,” Mrs. Patel said.

Their plans are working out as expected.

“Every time we have a long weekend we get out of town,” Mr. Patel said. They have a favorite spot near the Tennessee/ South Carolina border where they like to go canoeing, hiking and rafting. Both are excited about the new Hindu temple that was built in South Fort Myers. Special works of art that will go inside, made of granite and marble, are still being carved and will be shipped from India.

Mr. Patel is also active in the India Association of Fort Myers, as last year’s president and a former director of the organization. The association sponsors a full program of activities and events, including a youth group, as well as the annual India Fest. It’s an event full of music, food and dancing, held at Alliance for the Arts on the last Saturday in March. There is more information on www.iafortmyers.org.

The Patels both enjoyed the recent blockbuster film “Slumdog Millionaire,’’ a movie set in India, about a young man from Mumbai.

“It’s not what you would see when you travel to India, but it’s an excellent movie,” Mrs. Patel said.

Mr. and Mrs. Patel plan on continuing the business for the foreseeable future; at least until their youngest child, in the ninth grade, finishes high school. Then they might entertain the idea of finding some other kind of life — after all, they both have family all over the world, up North, in England and India. Or they might stay right in Fort Myers.

“Then we can see,” Mrs. Patel said. 