The beginning for El Encanto Cleaners came during the first presidential campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A cousin, David Martinez, and Moradiellos' father, Frank, started a little shop on 16th Street in Ybor City, across from the Centro Espanol box office. The business quickly outgrew the shop, moving to the two-story red brick building on 15th Street and Eighth Avenue where relatives ran a tailor shop. The cousins rented space inside. Moradiello's wife, Begonia, points to a small square window that has been filled in.
History has it the window was used as a lookout in the days of speakeasies and bolito halls.
Today, El Encanto, with its hissing machines and racks of clothing sheathed in plastic, occupies the entire first floor. Residents rent rooms upstairs. Tampa Bay Brewing Co., a restaurant and bar, leases the Moradiellos' building next door. Felix Borja of Frank Fort Tailor has his own shop in the back. She has other worries, too.