Towel Rental Programs by Business Type

Most accounts don’t need every towel style — they need the right mix for how their staff actually works. Balfurd builds each towel rental program around the job the towels are doing:

• Restaurants, bars and cafés — bar towels for wiping counters and spills, kitchen towels for the line, lint-free glass towels for polishing stemware, heavy grill towels for hot surfaces, and microfiber bar towels for streak-free cleaning. See the full restaurant towel service page for how kitchens typically set up their counts.
• Auto shops, manufacturers and industrial plants — shop towels built to absorb oil, grease and solvents, collected and laundered instead of thrown away.
• Healthcare facilities — operating room towels and general-purpose commercial towels, processed with the same verified hygiene standard as the rest of Balfurd’s healthcare linen.

Restaurant Towel Service

Kitchens and bars go through towels all shift. Our restaurant towel service delivers clean bar, kitchen, glass and grill towels on a weekly route and picks up the soiled ones, so you never run short during service. Towels are laundered to a verified hygiene standard.

Why Businesses Rent Towels Instead of Buying Them

Buying towels looks cheaper until you count everything that comes after the purchase. Towels disappear, get stained or torn, and wear thin after repeated washing. Someone has to launder them — usually in a residential-grade machine that doesn’t get the water hot enough — then dry, fold, count and reorder before the kitchen runs out in the middle of a Friday service.

A towel rental service replaces that with a predictable weekly cost. Balfurd purchases the inventory, launders it, replaces worn or damaged towels automatically, and delivers clean stock on the same days every week. Your route representative tracks usage and adjusts your par levels as your volume changes, so you’re not overpaying for towels you don’t use or scrambling when you’re short.

Laundered to a Verified Hygiene Standard

Towels touch food-prep surfaces, glassware and hands, so how they’re cleaned matters as much as how many you have. Balfurd is TRSA Hygienically Clean certified — an independent, outcome-based certification that tests the finished product for bacteria rather than relying on a self-reported checklist. Every towel on your route goes through that same verified process, which also gives you documentation to point to during a health inspection.

Towel Service Across Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia

Balfurd has been a family-owned linen service since 1927, headquartered in Tipton, PA. Towel rental runs on the same weekly routes as our linen, uniform and mat programs, covering Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Altoona, Lancaster and dozens of communities across Pennsylvania, plus accounts in Maryland and West Virginia. One account can combine towels with table linens, uniforms and floor mats on a single delivery and invoice.

Frequently Asked Questions

What types of towels can I rent from Balfurd?
Bar towels, kitchen towels, glass towels, grill towels, microfiber bar towels, shop towels, operating room towels and general-purpose commercial towels. Most accounts combine two or three styles based on how they’re used.

How often are rental towels delivered?
Service is scheduled for the same day each week on your regular Balfurd route. Your route representative swaps soiled towels for clean ones and adjusts quantities as your needs change.

Is renting towels cheaper than buying them?
For most commercial kitchens and shops, yes — once you include laundering, labor, replacement of lost or worn towels, and the inventory you need on hand to cover a busy week. Rental turns all of that into one fixed weekly cost. Our guide Should I Use a Towel Service or Buy My Own? walks through the comparison.

How are rental towels cleaned?
In Balfurd’s commercial laundry, under a process that is TRSA Hygienically Clean certified — meaning the finished towels are independently tested for bacteria, not just washed.

Can towel service be combined with linens, uniforms or mats?
Yes. Towels run on the same weekly route as Balfurd’s linen rental, uniform and mat programs, so everything arrives on one delivery with one invoice.

Want to see which industries rely on towel service most? Read Which Industries Need Towel Cleaning Services, or request a quote for your location.