Asklemmy

Yep, we have really expensive fashion boutiques on the promenade where I live. Nobody seems to enter and shop there. Ever. There's usually a shopkeeper, female, who sits there all day, adjusting the clothes.

It's been many years since I was there but there's a ski shop in Gainesville Florida.

This one time at oh fuck it just read this shit.

https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/hartford-county/hartford/hartford-drug-bust-marijuana-fentanyl-cocaine-investigation/520-d367ba2c-cc87-45b4-ab97-76dd652c54da

There's a car repair shop that is basically just a private garage, no sign, no ads, but on the regular, you see brand new, expensive cars with license plates from far away being "fixed" there. Always only takes an hour tops.

There is also a known drug dealing hot spot on the car park across the road of the car shop.

Not my town, but there is a junk shop in main railway station, (sells clothing, shit like t-shirts with weed prints, pipes, random little trinkets). I can only assume rent is very expensive in such a central location, and I really can't think of any way how that place is profitable. I only visited once as a teen since they sold us weed pipes even though I was underage. -There is a actual tobacco shop nearby, with much better selection. -There is never any customers -None of the products sold are very valuable, so they would have to sell lot of them to make profit -If you really wanted to buy cringe t-shirt, there is many shops for that around as well, all of which are well known compared to this one

Many business have gone under during the years in that location, replaced with others, but somehow this one place has been there over 10 years.

Burrito place near me. They cost $3 for a regular and then $5 for a specialty. No way they're surviving on that much money renting in a strip mall. I only ever see 1 or 2 other people in there at most even during lunch or dinner

Pretty much every small business in my village to be honest... I have never in my life seen any customer in there, and yet they have been open for years.

When I was in Seattle there is this pizza place in a suburban neighborhood that only open for 3 hours 4 days a week from 2:00 to 5:00. All of the workers were the same ones every day and they all three looked no nonsense but friendly enough when you ordered .

The pizza was really good and the calzones were fantastic, so I would go there often, but I almost never saw another customer in the place even though they had at least twenty tables with four chairs at each table set up in two giant dining rooms.

And they were in and out of the way spot with a very small sign. And I think at the most I ever saw one table taken up when I went there and that was only once.

And I never waited in line.

It just seemed like a really odd disposition for a pizza place that obviously needed to pay for a pretty high overhead considering how much space it took up.

We have a Mexican store here (one of several), but people come from ~90 miles to come to THIS one. None of the others in town, just this one. There’s a ton of others between here and there but this one is special. It’s not fake documents because I know other places that have those.

Not sure what they’re doing but they’re always busy and a ton of out of town/out of state people come and go.

There’s a medical supply store in my town I went in one time because my mom needed a crutch and everything was covered in dust. I went online and a bunch of people were saying that it’s just a front to commit insurance fraud.

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.

Red Rooster. It's a national chain restaurant here in AU with outlets in every major city, you never see anyone in there and nobody knows anyone who eats there, but they never seem to have any trouble staying open.

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.

There's a well known 24 hour florist in Melbourne.

Come on now, who needs flowers at 3am?

Mattress firm

DeLorean Motor Company’s Midwest sales office used to be just down the street from me, up until a few months ago. Never saw anyone in it, but I think I did see a DeLorean outside it once.

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).

I mean I live in Berlin...

We have a scrapbooking store in town that never seems to have business, if it's not a front it's a way to keep the family from getting inheritance

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

Yeah. Just about every tech startup with its own pretentious wall paintings and billboards and front-facing flair.

The loudest ones tend to be the ones doing basic shit like not paying property taxes around here.

Yes. It looks super dingy, and I've never seen anyone go in there.

But the main clincher is they had PS5's right up the height of their rarity. Super suspicious.

But it worked so I guess that's the main thing. I was half expecting him to ask if I wanted any drugs or a "new friend", but no.

I don’t even know where to start with this one…

There’s the “car wash and bistro”… yeah, they’re definitely serving more than just food in there

There’s the “carnival sweets and treats” that’s got no street sign or sign of any kind, for that matter, tucked in next to a coin laundry. It’s just some lady making funnel cakes, deep fried Oreos and other “carnival food”. As an added bonus, they have free arcade machines out front for you to play while you wait… yeah, I’m sure they bought those with all the money they’re raking in from fried dough…

I’ve got more but these are the two top fronts in my area for sure.