POCATELLO — The Pocatello Pony Express Car Wash is now up and running.

Community members and officials with Pony Express gathered on Feb. 6 to celebrate the launch of the location’s grand opening, marking it as the fourth Pony Express Car Wash to open in East Idaho since the budding company first raised its doors in 2019.

Yet, that expansion doesn’t stop there. The company, run by three brothers and a couple other business partners, is set to open its new Blackfoot location in March. In addition to this, co-owner Kyle Benson said they recently acquired a site in north Idaho Falls and another in Rexburg and have plans to open locations there in the near future.

“In general I think people like to keep their cars in a clean, healthy condition,” Benson said, regarding the amount of car wash businesses popping up throughout the area in the past five years. “When I was a kid, for example, if you went into an automatic car wash it was the one at the gas station, and you had to wait in line. It just took a long time. … The popularity has increased because it’s so quick and easy now. And the technology that’s been designed and the people working on it year over year, it’s just making it better and better all the time.”

Benson elaborated on this, adding that technology has advanced so rapidly that the new Pocatello location has features that the Chubbuck location, which opened in 2019, does not have because it didn’t exist at that time.

Pony Express uses well-known name brands of cleaning products so customers can feel comfortable knowing what exactly is being used to wash their cars. The company also hand selects the best quality of car-washing equipment rather than having a company use stock equipment to design the car wash from top to bottom.

“This is as custom a car wash out there,” Benson said. “We don’t just go to one manufacturer and buy all their stuff from the front to the back. We go in and hand select the best equipment that’s available.”

To further stand out from the increasingly competitive car-washing crowd, Benson said they are very conservative on water usage. Pony Express recycles its water, with Benson using his background in water treatment to develop a system that uses less and recycles more.

“I think one of the things that’s important to us is being conservative with the water that we’re given,” he said. “Every car wash uses an amount of fresh water. Some use more than others, and it’s all about the type of equipment and how you designed it in the beginning. My background is water treatment, and so it’s a passion of mine to conserve and reuse.”

The Pony Express’s hand-selected features and commitment to serving the area has gained a following of loyal customers, with the company winning several hometown recognition awards such as 2022 and 2023’s Idaho’s Best of Business Awards, as well as the Idaho State Journal’s 2023 Readers’ Choice Awards.

“One thing we would definitely want to communicate to the community is that we appreciate the support of our people and customers,” he said. “We are East Idaho natives, we’ve lived here for pretty much all of our lives. … Three generations of our family have been in Eastern Idaho since 1880. … We just want to treat the people that we grew up with … to the best product available.”

To celebrate the opening of the Pocatello location, Pony Express is offering any type of membership for only $9.99 for the first month at the new location at 550 E. Clark St. For more information about hours and seasonal deals, visit facebook.com/PonyExpressID or ponycarwash.com.