My aunt works at Tuesday Morning, and I still couldn’t tell you exactly what they do. But she likes it, and they seem to stay in business, so more power to them.
Grocery stores…ah, the bane of my existence. I am in my apartment, and within 5 miles of me there are 5 Publix stores, 2 Krogers, Whole Foods, Costco and a Super WalMart. It’s insane, but at least I can go the grocery more than once in a day and not have to go to the same one. 
I’ve always wondered how the jewelry stores and shoe stores can stay in business at malls. At least around here, those two types of store are probably damn near 50% of the mall’s tenants. The jewelry stores are almost always empty, except for one couple being waited on by 5 salespeople and the athletic shoe stores are actually not discernible from each other if you don’t look at the unis of the employees. Weirder still, as soon as one goes under, another takes its place, but usually somewhere else in the mall.
We also have nearby an organizational consultant and another small office that advertises a woman as a “personal life coach”. What some people won’t do to avoid having to get a job.
There is a very groovy shop around the corner from my house that ‘sells’ delightful hand-made glassware. All colours, all sizes, bowls, statues etc. VERY expensive and obviously VERY exclusive…because…
I’ve lived here three years and I have seen the shop open THREE times in that whole time. I have NEVER seen a customer in there! The lady-proprieter cleans her windows weekly, and rearranges the displays every month or so.
But she doesn’t do any business! It’s not SO exclusive as to be ‘Open by Appointment’ or anything…so what is going on here?
Is that the place that has a big sign out front advertising “Realistic Prosthetics”? I drive by that place semi-regularly (though I believe it’s in Harbor City, and not Torrance per se).
If it’s not the same store, they should probably get together. 
Get something off the shelf, then go to the registers – you’ll suddenly find forty people pouring out of secret compartments to get in the line before you do.
Two places:
- One is, in the St Louis area, there is a car dealer that sells only Hummers. No other brands, that’s it. Just Hummers, like, 50 or so parked on a small typical car-dealer lot/building. I bought my latest (non-Hummer) vehicle from another place down the road, and the salesman told me that this is the only Hummer-only dealer anywhere in the country. He mentioned lots of internet sales. I assume that if one starts a business you assume to try to keep it going the rest of your life, but I suppose it could just be capitalizing on a trendy product…that notion is odd to me though, which probably explains why I’m not rich yet.
- The other I won’t mention specifically by name: when I was driving for a courier service, I sometimes had runs to a performance-program company. This was a company that ran performance/motivation programs for other companies. And it is a huge business industry-wide apparently, the place is huge/new/modern, and has their own enclosed footbridge spanning a major interstate between two sets of buildings. I asked a lady there once what the company did because I had heard the name, but never what they did. She explained “corporate performance programs and now some corporate vacation, recreation and training programs”. I still don’t know what all that is, but the company has been there for years and employs hundreds of people, and obviously rakes in monster dollars.
???
There is a Fireworks World right by my work that is only open for 3 weeks out of the whole year. I could understand a tent on the side of the road, but to own a large building in a commercial area and have a big sign and everything just to be closed for 49 weeks a year?
We have nearby not just** The Nail and Staple Shop**, but The Nail and Staple Shop 2. Also The Ladder Store. Who wouldn’t just go to Home Depot? I do, however, love Tuesday Morning. The one nearest me is so tiny sometimes you can’t get through the aisle. They have good brand-name (Le Crueset, etc) cookware at discounted prices.
StG
Two places:
-
There’s a little drug store down the street that never has any customers. Never. The store is in a stripmall that, for some reason, has never done very well. Most of the storefronts have been empty for years; there’s only a dollar store at the other end of the strip, and this drug store. The drug store is a rinky-dink little thing: one or two shelves with convenience items, a shelf with some rental videos, and a counter at the back where you pay and where I presume that you can have perscriptions filled. This place can’t possibly do enough business to survive, but it has been there for as long as I can remember. I’ve gotta wonder if this place isn’t a “drug store” in more ways than one.
-
I went to college at the University of Detroit. I commuted. Not far from campus, I passed a clothing store that, judging by the window displays, sold African-themed clothing. Thanks to varying class schedules, I passed this store at various times of day, every weekday for four years. I never saw any cars parked in front of it, and in all of those four years I saw a grand total of one person go into the store. That was another place which I have to suspect was a front for some kind of illegal activity.
Every year in Southeast Michigan, starting around June, fireworks stores spring up in every vacant storefront they can find. The locations aren’t permanent, and the businesses all disappear shortly after the 4th of July. Once I wandered into one and bought a shrink-wrapped package of (presumably legal) fireworks. They were mostly fountains and noisemakers, with a little box of bang-snaps thrown in for good measure. I didn’t have the guts to ask if they had any “specials”
There are some specialty stores which make me wonder “The House of Knives”, “The Sydney Sock Shop”, and of course my favourite, “LETTERBOX WORLD”!
On Sydney’s Cleveland Street, which is a busy arterial road for traffic, but not the sort of place you go shopping (no parking or anything), was a shop selling plaster mouldings for renovating “Federation” houses (built a few years either side of Australian federation in 1901). These houses typically have ornately designed ceilings, and the shop sold mordern copies of these. The only people I ever saw going in or coming out of this place were young Asian men and teenagers with baggy clothes and “ricer” sports cars with wings and huge sound systems. Just the sort of guys who’d be interested in restoring historical buildings. I don’t know if it’s still there.
I haven’t been able to find one of these in Phoenix, 
but whenever I go to L.A. I try to stop by for a cherry lemonade. They could stay in business on this stuff alone!
(I’ve never had food there)
Hey I wish somebody would open something like that by me. I would pay a lot of money to have someone organize me!
Okay, thought of a couple more (plus I wanted to check “Email Notification” this time!)
In Phoenix, it seems that Circle K is on a quest to populate every major intersection (they are based here, but that’s no excuse). Without going out of my way, I could pass six of them on my way to PETsMART, which is only seven miles from me. And that’s based on what was there a year ago - there may be more by now. And, if Circle K doesn’t have a store on a corner, Walgreen’s does. We’re being inundated with Circle Ks and Walgreen’s!
Burger Baron.
We have them scattered all over Alberta, yet I don’t know anyone who has eaten at one. I pass one all the time, yet I’ve never see anyone parked there or eating there. You never see anyone with a take-out bag from there.
For many years now, I’ve been convinced it is a front for something illegal.
I run a paintball store in a small, semi-hidden shopping center. Occupying the store next to mine is an oritental rug store, which was shut down by the previous owner and purchased/ reopened by the manager. last thursday as I took a smoke break, I caught him outside and asked “Hey, you had much business this week?”
His reply: " Nobody yet, but we’ll see."
I don’t know how much he is selling rugs for, but damn! His spot is three times the size of ours, with storefront on a major highway, and he goes four days without a customer? Hmmmmm
About my near-neighbours, yosemitebabe wrote:
Well…I’m not saying Legsavers wouldn’t be a potentially useful enterprise. But if I were in danger of having my leg amputated, I would probably stick to a hospital, rather than roll the dice with a place in a strip mall situated between “Europe Therapy” and “New York Style Chinese Buffet.” I just have visions of Dr. Nick from The Simpsons setting up shop in such a place. Maybe if they had some guarantee, like if they didn’t save your leg they gave you a coupon to the buffet…
rjung suggested:
Nope, it’s not the same place. I’ve seen the one in Harbor City. Yeah, maybe they should get together–talk about a win-win situation!
Hi Mauvaise! Yes, I miss it too!
And did you ever notice there is a light bulb only store in McDowell avenue?
I heard on the radio a few days ago an ad for a scrapbook store. All they do is sell supplies for scrapbooks, and run classes on how to make them.
I wonder if “scrapbook” is some sort of secret signal for “we’ve got a new shipment of weed in”…
What about Spatula City? 
Honestly, though, there is this ricky-dink electronics store here in Troy that somehow stays in business. I have been in there twice, and both times what I needed was not there. (They only had ONE kind of motor in the entire store! Christ!) Also, the place looks like a warehouse. No windows, one door, secluded…odd. But I don’t think anything ‘shady’ goes on, as it’s just a bunch of old men who are running the place!
There’s a place in Syracuse called “The Flag Lady”. She only sells two things flags…and bongs.
There’s this intersection in a nearby town where three of the four corners are gas stations. How can three gas stations all make enough money when they’re all within 50 feet of each other? They didn’t even all charge the same amount for the gas, which doesn’t seem to make much sense. But then there was at least one customer in the most expensive of the three when I drove by, so maybe I just don’t understand the economics of gas stations.