At the Kenyan car wash … where cleaning comes with a cocktail
Nairobi’s car wash bars are a flourishing new trend, offering a place to socialise and show off your prized status symbol
Mateus Finato, the owner of Geco, sitting in his café. Photo: Gioia Shah
At Geco Café, the soundtrack to your morning cappuccino is the hiss of water spraying out of a pressure washer. The lunchtime burger is accompanied by the sharp smell of industry-grade soap lathered on paintwork. And you sip your sundowner cocktail as shiny 4x4s roll into the parking lot, gravel cracking under their tyres.
When Geco opened seven years ago in the central and affluent neighbourhood of Lavington, it was a small café that catered mostly to the clients of the car wash next door. But the café has now transformed itself into one of Nairobi’s trendiest hangout spots for the middle and upper classes, with live music in the evening.
It has also sparked a trend for similar car-wash-cum-bars to spread across the Kenyan capital.
“Everyone was just excited to come and wash their car in a fancy place”, says Mateus Finato, the venue’s Brazilian-born owner, as he sits on a high table artfully styled from an old bicycle.
But the trend is also a result of many Kenyans having more money to spend, or to invest in new sets of wheels, and a desire to show off.
Despite the economic rollercoaster of Covid, political upheavals and rising food prices, the Kenyan middle class has been steadily growing. The number of Kenyans earning a decent middle-class wage, around 100,000 Kenyan shillings (£610) a month, increased by about 15 per cent in 2021 alone.
One unmissable indicator of this growth is the cars on its roads. While about 33,000 new vehicles were registered in 2002, 20 years later it was more than eight times that.
In the East African nation “the ownership of a car is a mark of status”, explains the urban sociologist Beneah Mutsotso from the University of Nairobi. “You can have all the money, all the houses, but if you don’t have a car, you haven’t made it.”
As more cars began to clog Nairobi’s arteries, car washes followed suit. Once relegated to the city’s outskirts and more obscure neighbourhoods, today on seemingly every major road you will find an informal washing station with cars parked by the side of the road, people scooping water out of rainwater drains, scrubbing taxis, safari vehicles and politicians’ cars alike.
And the idea did not necessarily start with the upper and middle class. Ian Thuo, an Uber driver, considers the car wash part and parcel of his livelihood. The 39-year-old takes his small white hatchback to the same car wash in central Nairobi several times a week, on rainy days even twice a day. “This is my moving office,” Thuo says.
But for Thuo and most Kenyans it’s about much more than transport hygiene. Car washes are a place of gathering. In the absence of many parks, squares and gardens, these are Nairobi’s public spaces, where gather, meet with friends, do business with colleagues or take your lunch break from work.
Many car washes have grown to include a kibanda, a simple street-side restaurant offering Kenyan staples. But this concept has now been adapted to a middle class with ever deeper pockets and more upscale tastes. Drink and drive laws also appear to be less than rigorously enforced.
Instead of a simple beer or cup of chai, customers now order cappuccinos or a whole bottle of brandy; the maize staple ugali has been replaced by burgers and pizzas; and rather than a tiny Toyota Vitz you see Porsche Cayennes and decked-out Prado Land Cruisers.
Caroline, a 30-something Nairobian, is a regular at Geco. She comes here on Wednesdays for ladies’ day, when the car wash is half price for women. While sipping a glass of wine with a friend, reggae pulsing in the background, she explains that the bar offers familiarity and comfort. “You’ll find someone who is a total stranger, but we’ll have a cup of coffee, we’ll talk about politics… we’ll find common ground.”
However, Caroline, who only wishes to be identified by her first name, admits customers stick to their social lanes and says she would not feel comfortable at a side-of-the-road car wash. “It’s not about the car, it’s more about the social interaction,” she says.
The car wash has been “upgraded to a new lifestyle”, explains Finato, the owner of Geco. And as such, it fulfils another important social function. “People really like their cars and most importantly, people really like showing off their cars.”
If your car is your calling card, the car wash bar is the place to take it.