Car Wash Hires All-Autistic Staff to Wash Away Barriers: 10 Years Later, There’s Now 4 Florida Locations

In 2015, GNN reported on the opening of Rising Tide Car Wash in Florida, where a man’s autistic son could acquire all the merits of hard work, earn a paycheck, and become more independent.

Now 10-years-later, founder John D’Eri’s original vision has been shared by thousands—both on the spectrum and off of it; both in the driver’s seat, and out of it.

Washing, buffing, and waxing at Margate, Parkland, and Coral Springs, with a fourth location set for Pompano Bay in 2026, Rising Tide now employs 90 neurodivergent adults.

When GNN first reported on the story they had just started, and managed 35 employees.

“I don’t want him to sit in a room, taken care of by others once I’m gone,” John D’Eri said at the time “I want him to have a job, I want him to have friends.”

He was imagining lif