• @[email protected]
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    122 years ago

    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

  • Prophet
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    72 years ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    102 years ago

    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

  • @[email protected]
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    282 years ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    12 years ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    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.

    • Altima NEO
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      142 years ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 years ago

        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.

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠
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    82 years ago

    I’m convinced that calzones aren’t real, and any place claiming to sell them is a front.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      Absolutely. Calzones are pointless. They’re just pizza that’s harder to eat. No one likes them.

    • monsterpiece42
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      32 years ago

      Go anywhere north of PA and all you’ll see is Pizza/Sub/Calzone combo shops!

  • @[email protected]
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    702 years ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      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

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      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

    • Altima NEO
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      2 years ago

      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?

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    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

  • @[email protected]
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    122 years ago

    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.