Mattress firm

Several. But everyone knows they’re most likely being used for money laundering. There’s no way those strip clubs are profitable on their own.

When I lived in Daytona a shop opened up that sold nothing but Super-Whippers - $1 plastic whisks. They had two display trees in the front windows, one with black whisks and one with white whisks. They were never open and there was a hand-written sign on the door that said “Closed. If you want a Super-Whipper, they have some at the nail salon next door.” The store was in a strip mall less than 200 ft. from three dollar stores and a Publix, all of which sold plastic whisks.

Pretty sure it was a front lol.

Have a furniture store in the small downtown area of my town. The entire building looks cigarette stained. They have brown tint on their windows, and peering inside, all the furniture looks crazy old and probably not something you’d want to buy.

On top of that, they’re open “by appointment only” and that’s just about the only sign they have other than the name of the business. Never seen anyone go in/out. It’s in a major location too, “Main street”, there’s no way it’s a real thing.

There’s a beauty supply place where the inside of the store is just rows and rows of generic amazon junk. The thing is … that place gets extreeeemely high amounts of traffic and people even leave their engines running while visiting this place. It’s just so suspicious seeing as the place is just a junk-shop for amazon teir beauty supplies

I once went to a Vietnamese restaurant in Lancaster PA. Time comes to pay and for some reason we needed to go to the back room to pay. I walked in there and it was like one of the movie scenes where someone walks into an old west saloon or something and the music stops. In real life the music kept playing but there was a group of really rough looking old Vietnamese guys huddled around a pool table all smoking cigs who stopped what they were doing and went silent to just stare us down. It honestly looked like that scene in it’s always sunny where frank is playing cards with a bunch of Vietnamese guys. There were dudes sitting at a little bar, some women cleaning some sort of food at a little table. I don’t know that it was a “front,” but I definitely felt like I had walked into like the Vietnamese mob headquarters or something. Honestly like a mafia movie or something, just replace Italians with Vietnamese.

There is a person who sells bags on my high street. He has some cheap chiness watches up front, and actually uses the shop to sell fake watches (which is illegal, duh). I am 100% sure of it because I was going to buy one (but then I decided I would be too ashamed to wear a fake watch).

Also potentially a “tech” shop. Everything was so expensive, I’ve never seen people enter or leave, and when I asked about a device, they didn’t evsn know the spscs for it. How the hell are you selling a computer if you don’t know the specs for it? And why would a 32GB USB cost £12? Seems a bit much.

There was a chicken restaurant that had a hand painted sign which was poorly done. There were bars on the windows and the windows had ads for cigarettes and prepaid cellphones. It eventually got shut down due to distributing drug paraphernalia.

Tiny takeaway with a rich owner, hires on the spot, cash in hand payments, no contracts and most regular deliveries are to houses that stink of weed. Pretty sure that one would be a front (but it’s a front that does good food)

Not my town, but the town I used to live in had a store that appeared to only sell very old lampshades from the 1970s and I never saw a single customer go in there but it was always open. I’m 100% sure it was a front for the local crime syndicate.

Rome, Italy. rent for a small store is 800/mo where this store is, and an average salary is about 1200/mo. This antique/junk store sells like 2 things a day(with average price being 5€) always takes unfavorable exchanges and generally isn’t great business-wise, yet it’s been here for 15 years, in a district where most - more reasonable - businesses fail within 2 years.

It doesn’t take credits cards, only cash. There’s a flight simulator controller from the 80s that didn’t sell for a decade.

Maybe I’m just paranoid.

Edit: i still love that store, I’m addicted to collecting old junk (self promotion time: I founded a coin collecting community over at lemmy.ml,its called numismatics) and I go to that store every month or so, it helped me to get rid of some old vynil records from my grandfather in exchange for some cash (obv without receipt) but still, I think it either evades taxes (taking that from granted) or it’s something bigger, like a front for a mafia or something else.

At one point in Toronto I counted 10, yes ten, perfume shops on Yonge St from bloor to Dundas. I swear one of the shelves in one of them would have to be a secret door.

We have a fireworks shop. They just sell fireworks, and are open all year round. In the UK we have like 4 days a year when it’s acceptable to set them off.

They even have a number in the window for you to ring outside of regular opening hours.

It might as well just be called Mike’s Heroin and Weed Shop.

Here in Brazil, I guess the Subway franchise. Almost no one inside the shops for years and lack of real promotional campaigns give the sensation that it is a big money washing scheme.

No, but there is a shoe repair shop that I wonder about. Is it even possible to repair modern shoes?