March 26, 2025 // Franchising.com // SAVAGE, Md. – ZIPS Cleaners announced today that Leda Peterson and Diego Osorio have signed a new franchise agreement to open in Lancaster, Pa. Operating as KATLEX LLC, the franchisees have secured space at 1631 Mannheim Pike, and expect to open later this year.
Peterson and Osorio co-own ZIPS of York, Pa., in partnership with several other investors including Osorio’s wife, Michelle (Peterson’s daughter), and Peterson’s ex-husband, Carlos Cadenas. Osorio had been manager of that location before he and Michelle became co-owners in 2013. He also worked at Cadenas’ Falls Church, Va., ZIPS Cleaners store in the past. In Lancaster, he and Peterson will share the manager role.
“I love it. It’s the perfect partnership,” Peterson says about going into business with her son-in-law. “It’s good to have someone you know you can trust as a partner.”
Osorio echoes the sentiment about teaming up with someone he has known for so long. “We know we’re capable of doing this,” he says. “We’ve been working at ZIPS for more than 20 years combined; we have a lot of experience, and we know the market and the area. This has been something we’ve been thinking of doing for years but we never really took the plunge until now.”
Items brought into the new ZIPS Cleaners store will be processed under the same “single low price to dry clean any garment” and “in by 9 out by 5” service guarantees that have popularized the brand since its launch more than 20 years ago. Peterson explains that she and Osorio chose to open their first partnered franchise in Lancaster in response to mounting requests to bring the brand back to the market after a previous location closed in the wake of the pandemic.
“When that Lancaster store closed, a lot of people asked if we would open another location. They’re very loyal,” Peterson recalls. “I believe in our system. We saw that we needed a place in Lancaster and signed a new agreement.”
Pederson and Osorio are looking forward to opening their first location as sole partners and to adding more sites to their portfolio in the future.
“I think it’s good timing,” Osorio says. “I can’t wait to start.”
ZIPS serves both residential and commercial clientele, providing six services – dry cleaning, pressed laundry, Wash N Fold laundry, alterations, cleaning of comforters and other household items, and laundering commercial items like linens, uniforms, and other materials – under one room. Most locations now offer 24-hour “EZ Drop” receptacles that make drop-offs quick and easy and cater to customers’ schedules. In late 2024, the chain introduced the latest innovation in its mission to maximize convenience, opening its first automated 24/7 location in the southern Maryland city of Brandywine. Customers at that satellite location enjoy the luxury of round-the-clock access for dropping up or picking up their items, as always under the same pricing and turnaround schedules as at surrounding ZIPS Cleaners locations.
SOURCE ZIPS Cleaners®
Founded in 1996 and franchising since 2006, ZIPS Cleaners is a dry cleaning franchise known for its same-day, one-price business.