Directories

Service Category

Cleaning

Business Description

Pratt Abbott offers retail and home delivery drycleaning, wedding gown cleaning and preservation, uniform and linen rental, and coin-op laundry facilities.

Family Business History

Pratt Abbott has been a family business serving the Portland community since 1944. We started out as a solitary store in Bramhall Square at a time when over 20 different dry cleaners plied their trade in Maine’s largest city. Although Pratt left the business a year after its founding, Elliot Abbott became the face of the company for fourteen years, often waiting on customers and pressing shirts himself. In the 1940s he combated unemployment by hiring veterans through the GI Bill. One of these hires was Rodrick Lowell, an auspicious WWII vet who worked his way from the shirt presses to taking over ownership in 1958 when Abbott retired. From the beginning, Pratt Abbott has been a family business. The Abbott family still takes their dry cleaning to the Forest Ave. store. Rod and the Lowell daughters were frequent presences behind the counter. Rod’s father, Adrian Lowell worked on the machinery in the Westbrook coin-op until his late eighties. In 1991, the Lowells sold the business to father and son team Jim and David Machesney. Since then, Machesney children and grandchildren have helped man counters, drive vans, and bag shirts for Pratt Abbott. Although Jim has retired, David runs all 13 dry cleaning locations, along with the constantly expanding uniform rental department. Dave is a third-generation dry cleaner. He represents the industry on regional and national trade boards. Closer to home his community support extends to a number of organizations. Over the past 70 years, Pratt Abbott’s exceptional standard of care, ability to adapt to changing times and ongoing support of our customers has allowed us to become the largest dry cleaning company in northern New England. Our facilities are fully state of the art with premium dry cleaning finishing, spotting and processing capabilities that set us apart from the rest. We invite you to experience the Pratt Abbott difference for yourself.