'Wonderful being home': Palm Beach native Jack Cooney opens express car wash in West Palm

2020 was quite a year for Palm Beach native Jack Cooney.

A third-generation Palm-Beacher who left his hometown after high school to pursue a career in investment banking, he returned in early 2020, just before the pandemic with a child on the way and a business concept to develop.

Cooney's daughter, Poppy, was born later in 2020. His business, Pink Bird Car Wash, opened this month.

"It was a strange time because of COVID," said Cooney, a former Palm Beach Day Academy student and Yale University graduate who worked in the real estate investment industry in New York City before returning home. "It was tough to get fully rebooted.

"We found out in January 2020 that my wife was pregnant with our first child, my daughter Poppy, who is now 2. So 2020 was pregnancy, COVID, the business, and moving to Florida. There was plenty to keep me occupied."

Much of Cooney's attention has been taken up by Pink Bird Car Wash, which opened Nov. 29 at 1510 Belvedere Road in West Palm Beach.

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An express car wash that utilizes advanced equipment and technology, Pink Bird Car Wash offers customers a streamlined, convenient and low-cost car wash experience, Cooney said.

Customers are in and out in as little as three minutes, and they have access to automated payment options and complimentary self-serve vacuum and finishing stations, he said.

“We are thrilled to bring the express car wash model to West Palm Beach and introduce our friends and neighbors to the future of car washes that focus on convenience, affordability and sustainability,” Cooney said. “At Pink Bird, everyone can afford to get their car washed on a regular basis without a big commitment of time and money.”

Cooney, now a father of two, began developing the idea for an express car wash when he was living in New York City.

He took a special interest in obscure business models that became successful, such as self-storage units that often were co-located with car washes.

"I've done a variety of things during my career, but one common theme has been a focus on idiosyncratic investment opportunities, whether that was by geography or product type,"' said Cooney, whose younger brother is Palm Beach Town Council member Ted Cooney. "I spent a few years developing Walmarts in Mexico. I've always been drawn to things that were a little bit off the fairways."

After Cooney returned to Palm Beach, he and his brother-in-law, Brent Andrews, decided to start Vybe Investments, a real estate investment firm, and focus on car washes in South Florida, with land and location as their main focus.

In partnership with Dallas-based Montgomery Street Partners, Cooney and Andrews opened their first Pink Bird Car Wash location as part of a $100 million investment in South Florida.

The Belvedere Road location, near one of the busiest Wawa stores in the state, was a perfect fit for the new business, Cooney said.

"This was the first location I identified when I started working on this business plan in 2019," he said. "It's a great site in terms of traffic, visibility and co-tenancy. The Wawa on the corner of Belvedere and Australian is the fourth highest-volume Wawa in the state of Florida. We just thought that this would be a great flagship. I like the proximity to higher-income neighborhoods, but it also can really attract just about any type of customer."

A second Pink Bird Car Wash is expected to open next year at Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and Executive Center Drive in West Palm Beach, and Cooney and Andrews are targeting seven other locations in Palm Beach County.

"If you travel around the country, car washes have really stepped up their game in terms of location, the quality of the facilities, quality of equipment and quality of operations," said Cooney, who worked with the social services organization Vita Nova, Inc., to staff the Belvedere Road car wash.

"I've been seeing this all over the country in previous business activities, and I just knew instinctively there was a market void in South Florida, and Palm Beach County in particular."

As his businesses begin to open, Cooney, 40, said he looks forward to building his company and reconnecting with peers from his childhood and teenage years on the island.

"It's been really wonderful being home," he said.

Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach native opens new express car wash near Wawa in West Palm Beach