Hoffman Expert Cleaning has ribbon cutting at new Carlyle location

Hoffman Expert Cleaning had its ribbon cutting at its new auto detailing location in Carlyle on Saturday, Aug. 1. Pictured are, FROM LEFT, Carlyle City Councilman Jim McClaren, Kylee Peters, Carlyle City Councilman Tammy Peters, Brad Hoffman, Seth Hoffman, Carlyle Mayor Judy Smith and Carlyle City Councilmen Bruce Hilmes and Jeff Taylor. Photo by Matt Wilson    A new car detailing business in Carlyle had its grand opening and ribbon cutting on Saturday, Aug. 1.
    Hoffman Expert Cleaning is owned and operated by Seth Hoffman.
    Hoffman has both an exterior cleaning business and a car detailing business. They are two different businesses under one company.
    He started the exterior cleaning portion of the business in April 2019. He then got into the car detailing and power washing business. He bought the current Hoffman Expert Cleaning building for the vehicle portion of his business on March 25.
    "It has been pretty much non-stop work trying to get everything going," Hoffman said.
    Most of the vehicle detailing will be done at the new location. They will do interior and exterior cleaning and waxing, metal polishing, paint correction, headlight restoration and glass scratch repair.
    Hoffman's grandmother and uncle also were in the car detailing business.
    Hoffman started the business in Carlyle at his parents house. He moved to Beckemeyer for about five years and was working out of a pole barn.
    The current auto detailing place focuses on basic vehicles like cars, trucks and SUVs. They are hoping to expand more and get into semi trucks, RVs and campers. They do work on some farms with the exterior cleaning side of the business, and they are hoping to expand to wash and do paint corrections on bigger pieces of farm equipment.
    Hoffman's plan was to always run his own business. He went to Kaskaskia College for 2-1/2 years and got his associate degree, then worked for two years as a bookkeeper for a landscaping company.
    "I have always wanted to get into cleaning," Hoffman said. "It is just something that everybody needs. As I started doing that, I started to notice all of the different things I could expand into. There are different things that people need done, and it all just kind of ties together."
    There is one full-time and one part-time employee at the auto detailing business. They are hoping to expand next year and focus more on the detailing side. Hoffman's hope is to get a team of six to eight people and see where they go from there.
    Hoffman said the business has been busy so far this year. The exterior cleaning side has been taking up a lot of time, and they have slowly been inching into detailing.
    Hoffman is a 2015 Carlyle High School graduate. He has lived in Carlyle all of his life except for the five years he was in Beckemeyer.
    Hoffman Expert Cleaning is located at 391 Franklin Street in Carlyle.