Want to talk about places where you wonder how they stay in business? How about this: in Hayward, California there was (maybe still is) a shop called “The Fisherman’s Friend”. Did it sell bait? Tackle? Fishing rods?
Nope. It was a Christian knick-knack shop. Porcelain angels and inspirational plaques and the like.
Thing is, you couldn’t tell what it was from the outside.
I’ts called avens and has a "'thomasville gallery " in it
No one is ever in it as i think the prices are too high and the furniture pretensious for the area
Ie a globe with a 14/15th century age of discovery map imprinted on it for $850 $1500 dollar leather chairs ect
All I can figure out is they do a really good catalog business or something
There’s a used-car lot near my parent’s house. It’s been there since I was a kid. I have never seen anyone – a manager, a salesman, or even a prospective customer – in the lot. Occasionally cars get moved.
There are two tiny restaurants along Route 1 in New Jersey. One is a hot dog place, the other a Mexican restaurant. These are really tiny. They never seem to be open, but they’re obviously not abandonened. How they manage to do enough business to pay the rent/supplies is a total mystery. Occasionally we might see a single car parked outside, but, unless the guy is buying $5000 worth of hot dogs or tacos, it doesn’t seem like enough to justify keeping the place open.
The one I didn’t understand was this seafood restaurant in Vancouver (I’ve got relatives out there, once in a while I get to visit them). My mother and I were wandering around being touristy, we got hungry, we thought, “Let’s try that seafood place”, we went to that seafood place, we saw the sign on the door that said “Closed for lunch”…
Just how did that place stay open?
The Rosendorf-Evans Fur Salon in our local shopping mall.
I’ve never seen anybody in there, and who wears fur nowadays anyway?
The hardware store in my town never seems to have anything I want hardware-wise, and the guy who works there always seems pissed off. I have been able to get an oil can, and keys duplicated, but that’s it. I can’t buy wrenches there, engine oil for my mower, spark plugs for my mower, and when I asked to get my moped key duplicated (I had blanks, and the original key was broken, but not on the part that goes in the lock) the guy just looked at the key, and said “No. I won’t do it”. I went to buy a garden trowel, and made the mistake of letting the guy know that I wanted a “trowel”, and when I picked up a small shovel, he corrected me, and showed me a masonry trowel, saying “That’s not a trowel!”.
I always get quick service in the place, it’s just very gruff.
The Home Depot is a short walk from there, and not nearly as irritable.
The Fanny May Candy store in my town is almost free-standing, and I never see anyone there…even on mother’s day or Easter. I dunno how the hell they stay open. They’ve been there for years.
Another one that gets me is a fireplace store. How many people go out and buy a fireplace. I mean, don’t they usually come with the house? Go figure.
They probably sell mostly gas conversion fireplaces. My parents went to a fireplace store when they wanted to convert their fireplace to gas logs.
There’s a Lawn Goose Clothing store near my dad. They sell outfits for those cement gooses that you put on your front porch or lawn or where ever.
That’s right…they sell clothing for geese that aren’t even actually alive. They have little holiday themed outfits and sports outfits and raincoats and hats and sunglasses and even shoes to dress up your statue of a goose.
I know there are people out there with a lawn goose, and that sometimes said people like to maybe put a santa hat on it at Christmas…why, my dad’s neighbor has a little Avalance jersey on hers right now. But do these geese actually need entire wardrobes?? Do enough people buy whole wardrobes for their little lawn goose to keep an entire store up and running?! It boggles the mind.
What’s up with that chain store Tuesday Morning? What in Hell do they sell? They don’t advertise, and you can’t tell from the name, but they’re all over the place.
Actually, my father-in-law moves pianos, part time. The shop he works for rents and repairs them as well. He’s in nearly every weekday moving a piano or two. In addition to people moving, a lot of times someone will have a party or decide to have a concert somewhere where there isn’t a piano. They rent it for the day, have it moved in and tuned, and then removed afterwards.
I’ve always wondered about those single-product type places in malls, like those places that sell only calendars, or sunglasses, or earrings. They always seem empty, and you know the rent at a mall has to be huge.
I’ve been dragged in there once by a sister-in-law. It seems to be full of close-out and other cheap merchandise, mostly home decoration, kitchenware, etc. Bargain-hunter dream, with full shelves and needing to poke around to find the items worth your time and money.
My father buys flags all the damn time. I sometimes think he bought the house he and my mother now live in primarily because it has a flagpole and is within a few miles of the flag store in Phoenix. He runs up the U.S. flag every morning and adds whatever flag would be (sort of) appropriate for the day – a USC flag for whenever they’re playing football, an Irish flag on St. Patrick’s Day, an Italian flag on Columbus Day… (He’s neither Irish nor Italian.) I have seen him pull the car over and knock on the door of a total stranger to tell him that his flag was in less than mint condition and that it should be replaced. I bought a load of various European countries’ flags when I was over there for a few years and sent him one for every birthday, Christmas and Father’s Day for like four years. He never gets tired of them.
Every time we go into the flag store (which is nearly every time I visit, of course), there are people in it. I suspect that the people who run them are like my father and would keep the place open even if it never made a cent, just so they could meet other flag lovers.
Ironically, he didn’t put a flag on his car after September 11th, probably because he knew it would tatter.
Just in case anyone is really curious, Christian Science Reading Rooms are maintained by the Christian Science churches in their area, so they don’t have to make money. They do sell stuff-- Bibles, The Science & Health, The Christian Science Monitor, etc., but they also let people borrow things or just come in and read for a while (hence, reading room). It’s not really a business in the traditional sense of the word.
I just recently went through a sort of run-down area of town and came across a clearly operational business called, “Bob’s Popcorn and Caramel Corn.” It’s hard to believe a place selling something so cheap and easy to make can stay alive in this day and age.
I also don’t get Penzey’s Spices. I guess since I’m not a spice gourmet, I’m perfectly satisfied with the stuff I get at the grocery store. How do these places make enough to stay alive when the typical purchase is less than $10? Weird.
Every city center I’ve been in has had a Wig Store. Ineveitably, they are large shops, with cheesy dusty display windows with outdated faded mannequin heads sporting awful, 1950’s wigs. Nobody goes in. Nobody comes out. And yet, they have a huge store, downtown.
It’s weird, I’m tellin’ ya.
Tuesday Morning
Deeply discounted kitchen, bed & bath stuff.
You could probably find some towels and a sauce pan there for pretty cheap.
I think it’s stuff other places couldn’t get rid of or some other kind of excess inventory type thing.
There is an ANCIENT hardware store on Rt 18 in Brockton, MA. This place looks so old and decrepit, I just had to stop in-it is like a museum! The old guy that owns it has paint brands from the 1950’s! His stock is ancient-he has new Jacobsen lawn mowers-a brand I haven’t seen in years! The place is falling apart-yest somehow he stays in business. What is really odd, is how he runs the place-he puts stock outside (shovels, brooms, etc.) and moves it back in before he closes. My guess is-he just doesn’t want to retire. I don’t see how he can run a hardware store anyway, because a giant Home Depot is just a few miles away!
I love Tuesday Morning! I buy sheets there - I got 450 count, Egyptian Cotton, king-sized sheets (in a non-repulsive color) for $189 a set. These puppies go for $600 or more in department stores. (350 count EC, King sheets - $99 at Tuesday Morning.) They’re also a good place for luggage, picture frames, pots & pans, and some decorative items. And, when they open for Christmas, their Christmas decor stuff is awesome!
I don’t understand how all of the supermarkets in my neighborhood stay open. I mean, within FIVE MILES of my house, we have the following: two Safeways, an Albertson’s, a Fry’s Marketplace, a Fry’s Food & Drug, two Basha’s (local chain), A.J.'s Fine Foods (local upscale chain), plus a Sam’s Club and a Costco. (We DID have even more, but a couple of them did, indeed, close - mainly because they were bought out by Fry’s, who already had the two stores in the area and didn’t need to shift the traffic.) There are probably others I don’t know about. Ditto Home Depot. We have two of them within six miles. Plus a Lowe’s.