In the town I live in one of the worst kept secrets is a small hundred year old mixed use 2 or 3 story building. The Laundromat at the bottom with a handful of old washing machines and dryers is always locked and never actually open. Former tenants have publicly stated it’s purely a front because the landlord doesn’t want to bother with a commercial tenant but because of the zoning it needs a commercial space on the ground level so they maintain a fake laundromat
Seniors Pizza in Calgary, AB. Always a massive line outside, even during winter.
That sounds like a legit place then
There’s a restaurant in my hometown of Lexington, KY called "“Frank and Dino’s.” It’s owned by Carlo Baccarezza who has ties John Gotti, who was Italian mafia. He’s a horrible person and has been sued by former employees of the restaurant for discrimination.
He opened this place just before the pandemic. It’s supposed to be a fine-ish dining establishment with authentic Italian. The prices are high, but the food is terrible. It might be passable for someone who doesn’t know authentic Italian. In any case, the restaurant sits empty most of the day, and it doesn’t make sense to me why you would open a place like this and just allow it to have a terrible reputation that’s mostly empty day in and day out.
Cellphone cases stores
Ask any Australian about Red Rooster. franchise chain that can be found all over the place, yet no restaurant ever seems to have customers either in store or the drivethrough, at least not in the volumes you would expect they require to stay open. Its a real enigma, but their chicken is S-tier
The red rooter crunchy fried chicken is epic
Used to love the cheesy nugs too, not sure if they still have them
oh yes and the reds hot sauce version is epic!
they are always so depressing looking…
There was an asian food place in my local mall back when I worked there as a teen. My old boss casually mentioned that it was a human trafficking front. They’d have women from their native country marry for a visa, have them come to US, employ them work at the store, then… I have no idea… I sincerely hope it was for visas and not more nefarious purposes…
There was also a gambling ring going on in the tailor shop of the same mall. But that was whatever.
There was this business that was letting at 24:00 receipts on our tables that weren’t ours. And the girl was searching always what table didn’t have a receipt so she would give one randomly.
Either our “IRS” tax evasion works over night, or that store just makes blank receipts for drugs or other illegal acts. It was weird anyway, and self service. Wtf. Self service in the middle of the town in a beer bar pub like is just weird. Why did they have the waitress giving fake receipts then. Everything was so sketchy.
An appliance store in my area. There are always crazy nice cars out front. Car brands I don’t even recognize. The store is super crappy looking and run down. Went in one time when we were looking for fridges. Everything was so expensive. Very old models of fridges out on the floor. No customers. Very weird.
Sounds like one of the car dealerships around here. Lots of expensive luxury cars. All white. I never see anyone there. The place is way too expensive for the shitty neighborhood its in.
Stores that sell very expensive items would only need to make 2 or 3 sales a month to stay a float. For example, if you sell super cars, you just need to sell around seven cars a year and still make profit.
I’m convinced that calzones aren’t real, and any place claiming to sell them is a front.
Absolutely. Calzones are pointless. They’re just pizza that’s harder to eat. No one likes them.
Calzón is a kind of underwear in Spanish. I mean, im pretty sure people need those.
Go anywhere north of PA and all you’ll see is Pizza/Sub/Calzone combo shops!
A lot of car washes popping up near me with a monthly fee unlimited washes program that I’m positive is just a better version of what Walter did in Breaking Bad. Scan your app’s QR code and away you go, meanwhile someone behind the scenes rings it up as a cash sale and throws $15 into the till.
Mattress Firm
Mattress Firm.
…I’ve said to much…
Are you Italian? Because there’s a famous mattress firm that does ads all the time on TV, and they’ve been doing it for 30+ years.
There was a satirical magazine many years ago where people could vote for “the best things list”, and one of the items on the list was always “let’s chase away the Mafia from town of the mattress firm”
Right, who buys that many mattresses that there needs to be three large mattress shops in the one area and than another actual house shop like Harvey Norman furniture right near by too
Like who the fuck needs to buy mattresses so often that theres gotta be a Mattress Firm on every corner.
And whats with the name? Its so weird… Mattress Firm?
Yeah! Why not Mattress Soft?
But then I’d expect them to be selling software
It was going to be called Mattress Soft, Medium, or Firm, but then they got the quote from the sign company and changed the name to Mattress Firm.
Sure, Dad
And whats with the name? Its so weird… Mattress Firm?
I think it’s a fun name. It’s got a double meaning. They’re a firm (business) that sells mattresses, and mattresses can also be firm.
There’s a macaron shop near my work that has no business (!) being that large, downtown. It has a very fancy shopfront and website, I’ve called to pretend to order one time and it was quite expensive.
I’ve never even seen cars/vans/bikes/whatever taking away their order there (it’s delivery only).
It’s super weird, macarons are not even that popular around here, theres another better known macaron place that is tiny compared to this one
Absolutely - our local smoke shop in my towns plaza.
I live fairly close to a place notoriously filled with drug dealing gangs. One summer 3 pet fish stores and 4 barber shops opened and within a couple of month they were all closed.
