I’m surprised no one has mentioned vape shops.
They sell oils, vinegars, spirits.
A constant flow of tourists has the same effect. I think I’ve been to an oil & vinegar shop in Savannah GA. And I stopped at a hot sauce shop in New Orleans.
By the way, in Tokyo there is a bookstore that only sells 1 book. Each week they pick one book to promote and sell.
Many of those also sell leaf tobacco products. Now, if you want to compare them to cannabusiness …
Right by my office just outside Portland, OR is a store called Nothing Bundt Cakes. I haven’t been in there, but I have wondered just how sustainable a business that could possibly be.
There really are many such stores in a lot of cities. My favorite name is Left-Handed Complements.
I know that condom stores has already been mentioned, but Condom World has been operating on Newbury St. in Boston’s Back Bay for decades now. But it doesn’t sell only condoms, despite the name.
That’s just a cover for their main business.
If you can believe it, Nothing Bundt Cakes is a nationwide chain with well over two hundred locations. I guess cake is good business.
When I went to the Maryland Renaissance Fair about 10 years ago, and saw all the medieval stuff for sale—including some truly gorgeous dresses, which, however, could only be worn in a medieval setting—I came to the conclusion that renaissance fairs sell medieval gear whose sole purpose is to be worn at renaissance fairs. A totally circular process that feeds only itself. Anyway…
The example of “most oddly specific retail” I ever saw was a shop selling only one kind of item: imitation Harry Potter wands. That was it. 
This was not some cheap fly-by-night vendor stand either. It was a solid wood purpose-built edifice.
Now considering the profits to be made, vendor space at a renaissance fair must be frighteningly expensive, let alone a fancy structure of solid timber. How on earth could they afford that expense, let alone turn a profit, by selling nothing but little sticks of wood? How much market for that product could realistically exist anyway? The most baffling economics puzzle I’ve ever seen.
Wow! I had no idea.
Heh.
Have seen many of these stores. Selling:
- Just salt water taffy
- Just skipping ropes
- Just one specific car part – mufflers
- Different stores with one specific car part – tires, hubcaps, doors, etc.
- Just Skateboards
- Just clown shoes
Oh, I did too. I literally walked 5 miles from Brighton to Newbury Street some sunny days just to see if it was open. The owner was obviously passionate about gargoyles and other religious iconery especially of the grotesque sort.
If you saw something you liked, he would tell you all about it in detail before he asked he how much you thought it was worth to YOU (again, there were no set prices). I ended up buying a small gargoyle, a Green Man and a few other smaller items over the years. I wish I had a place for some of larger, more macabre and bizarre items but I didn’t at the time or I would have bought those too.
The store is gone now for reasons I don’t know but I do have a copy of the piano music that played in the background if you are interested (it is freely distributable according to Lou, the owner and creator). It won’t get the store back but you can recreate the same creepy feel in your own house with some dry leaves and The Anatomy of Melancholy - No beginning and No End playing on infinite loop.
No–I think this is the only location for this store. It’s actually been here for a while, so it must be doing just fine. This kind of store wouldn’t surprise me in a larger city, but I live in a large town/small city, and there are several other gourmet grocery stores, so there’s no shortage of places to buy fancy olive oil and balsamic vinegar (like Whole Foods, which is just down the street from this store). And Wegman’s is coming. I’ve never been to Wegman’s, but I’m excited! We’re spoiled when it comes to grocery stores. 
When this guy (Curt) stopped doing what he was going and told us he was moving to another town to open up a store and sell [nothing but] olive oil, we all thought he was nuts too. You can get olive oil anywhere. That was like 15 years ago, then he opened up a bunch more, I see he’s set it up as a franchise, then all of a sudden I see him on Shark Tank a few years ago. I assume he’s doing well for himself…but really…it’s a store that sells olive oil. I’m always curious about that. I can, I guess, understand stores that sell just spices (like Penzey’s), but I just can’t imagine going out of my way to get olive oil or vinegar.
I’d never heard of them until just now, but you are right.
Olive oil is an odd business. It literally runs like a cross between a cartel and a blood diamond store. Years ago, my ex-father in law (who looks exactly like a real Godfather) got the exclusive contract to distribute Olio Carli in the United States. It is one of the top Italian brands that is delivered door to door in Italy but didn’t exist in the U.S. until then. That started out fine but ended about as well as you can expect with a bunch of Italian businessmen looking to get their cut (no pun intended).
A large percentage of olive oil is fake, adulterated or mislabeled. Much of it is diluted with lower cost oils or intentionally misgraded. This isn’t a new phenomenon. It has been going on since before Jesus was a thing.
I can see the need for a store that stands by the purity of their products because some people want that and are willing to pay for it.
You know, thelurkinghorror posting a link to that place is disturbingly appropriate.
Inside the Marche du Nord in Montreal, there is a store that sells only oil. Mostly many many different kinds of olive oil, but others as well. There is also a limited tasting. They used to have a spice section but the last time I was in there, it had disappeared, although they directed me to a spice store a few doors away.