I lived with a guy in the early 80s who sold telephone systems and other stuff (i met him when i needed a demon dialer for my office) who would happily put your weed purchase on a credit card billed as repair services.
There are at least two businesses in this town that, for the life of me, I don’t understand how they stay profitable. One is an auto parts store, also with a haphazard collection of this & that - lawn & garden stuff, tools, that sort of thing. Some of the merchandise has been on the shelf for decades: I know this from the crusty layer of dust atop the packages.
Similarly is a store that sells… well, basically whatever they feel like selling today. Over here in this corner are used mattresses. Over here in that one, used furniture. Across the aisle, new furniture. In the back, homemade soaps from someone’s barn. Hummel figurines here, garden hoses there. Like the auto parts store, some of the merchandise is caked in dust and has been there for decades, like the 90’s-era speakerphone that is still in the original box.
The trouble is, I don’t see how they can be fronts. The owners of both stores are uptight, church-going Republicans - and yes, I know that that means very little, but still.
About 20 blocks from where I live is Ace Typewriter Company. Big neon sign in the window, typewriters of various types and ages all over the place, regular hours Monday through Saturday…and I have never seen any customers in there.
OK, it’s a zombie, but I’ll help keep it active.
I just got back from Williamsburg, VA. There’s a pancake house there that I have patronized for at least 25 years. (It’s not an IHOP or any other chain.) It is only open for breakfast, and may be open for lunch, but I’m not sure. Definitely not open for dinner. It’s pretty big…at least the size of a Golden Corral.
I was there at 10:00A and there were five tables occupied. This was about as busy as I’ve ever seen it. There have been several times that I was there and I was occupying the ONLY table at the time. In fact, I’ve been there on the Monday after the Grand Illumination at 10:30A and been at the ONLY table occupied.
This might not be so unusual, but there’s more…
The local LE is quite often seen eating there. There’s sometimes four or five marked cars parked in the lot. There might be a couple other tables occupied at those times.
The food is actually quite good and the prices are fairly high.
The staffing is good. When I was there yesterday, there were a cashier, three waitresses, and a manager on-duty, plus whatever kitchen staff I couldn’t see.
I had told my wife about this place for a year or two before our visit. On the way into the historic area, we passed a street sign (not a billboard or an “at this exit,” but an actual “point of interest” sign put up by the State or the city) pointing the way to this restaurant and giving a distance. It was the ONLY sign of this type for a restaurant that I saw anywhere in the city. My wife said, “Is that the place you talk about? Why do they rate a sign?”
The location is not near any nice hotels and is, quite frankly, in a pretty low-traffic part of town.
I can only imagine that they have some absolutely dynamite periods of business, but I’ve never seen one. I keep expecting to show up and find they’ve closed, but I’ve never been disappointed.
Was at Vegas a few years ago exploring one of those open-late strip malls just off the strip. Walked into a small toy store that advertised it was open until midnight at around 10PM on a Wednesday so I could get my cousin a gift before I left. Place was fairly large and had aisles of merchandise well-stocked and presented. However it was obvious all of it was cheap Chinese knock-off stuff you’d normally see at Dollar Tree or any other bargain basement toy retailer. Despite being so late with no other customers there were two people manning different cash registers and two other people sweeping up. Nothing at all in the entire store was price labeled though so I picked up a cool toy dart gun that at most cost $5 (and I suspect could have been sold at Dollar Tree as well) and took it to one of the registers for a price-check and without even giving it a second-look the guy at the register immediately told me it cost $25. I asked him if he was sure and he responded somewhat rudely that it was indeed $25 so I just put it back in its place and walked out.
I can’t imagine the place gets much business due to the insane mark-up on cheap toys. Like if they were selling them for $10 - $15 I could see tourists buying them but not at such an absurd mark-up when there’s other places selling stuff for much cheaper around there. Also weird considering how many employees they had idling about on a Wednesday night.
Out of curiosity I visited their Web site: lots of pictures of vintage typewriters.
On their Yelp page they have a good number of recent reviews extolling the virtues of Ace’s repair expertise. Ignorance fought: people are actually getting typewriters repaired!
Oh, and one reviewer notes: they don’t accept credit cards; make of that what you will.
You’re in Portland, Oregon? That could explain it. Typewriters seem to be a hipster fad and Portland is Hipster Central.
Some people really like typewriters, and it’s not like you can get new ones these days.
I doubt it is a large industry, and certainly not growing, but it’ll be a niche for probably a generation or more.
I cannot understand how vape shops even make rent. There are loads and loads of them all over the place. I’ve heard the profit margins are high and they may do more mail order than foot traffic but still. Commercial rents are pretty expensive before insurance, inventory, payroll, utilities and everything else. With so many shops, the competition must be fierce, too.
That antique mall I referenced multiple times earlier in this thread, where I rented space? Yeah, it was a money laundry in its final couple of years. :eek: And not even the people who worked there knew this! All of a sudden, the owner had a lot of money, and he said that he had sold some of his extremely valuable (true) glassware collection, which was correct but it didn’t explain everything.
THAT was explained when his house was raided, and police were carrying Rubbermaid totes of weed out of his house! When they swept his house, they also found more than $100,000 in cash, which of course was seized. He’s in prison for at least 7 years; his wife got probation. The place closed at the end of 2016, because their source of revenue that was propping up the business was gone. I found out later that what they really got in trouble for at first was producing edibles for sale without a commercial kitchen and a food-manufacturing license.
Across the street was, and is, a wonderful thrift store that aids local animal shelters, and after the place closed, she told me that shortly after she opened, a police officer came in there and told her to never patronize the antique mall, and don’t send her customers over there either, because it was a money laundry. She didn’t want to tell me while she knew I rented space over there.
p.s. I was concerned for the status of my pharmacist license should the authorities come knocking, until I found out that he was not selling anything illegal out of the storefront itself. Plus, I didn’t know what he was up to which also makes a big difference.
I’ve worked for a business that I 100% knew was a criminal front, and it was nothing like most of the businesses described in this thread. It was a bar, and it was the one of busiest ones in town. The building was clean, well maintained, they had really good food, and they even had a weekly trivia night that I won a few times. The bouncers were hard as fuck, but other than that, it was purposefully just like any other bar.
When I see a business that I suspect isn’t profitable, I’m more likely to assume that it’s a hobby business or tax shenanigans. I’ve known a lot of legit businessmen who use their corporation like a pension, so they can pay their salaries out at much lower tax rates over the course of time. Several of them have kept their offices open long after they stopped operations, just to maintain the illusion that their business still has a “reasonable expectation of profit.”
On the other hand, I can’t argue with Martin Hyde’s post #104. He’s absolutely right. Most people in organized crime really are idiots, and I can totally see many of them thinking that running a business would be easy and getting in way over their heads.
ZOMG this sounds like a bar/restaurant that opened in my town a couple years ago! By all accounts, the food is wonderful, but the owner is openly racist and sexist (anti-blacks and Muslims, openly sexually harasses female employees and customers, had Trump posters all over the place during the campaign, etc.) and it’s mystery how he got a liquor license because he’s a convicted felon.
Maybe their real business is selling “Chicago typewriters”.