That’s it!
I love that store. I need to get myself a boob-shaped cake pan.
“We sell spatulas-and that’s all!”
I remember a store that sold-crystals. As in, new age, river crystals, or whatever. I went in there on a lark. That’s all they sold-crystals. Fancy ass rocks. I will say, they were pretty-but who the hell has a burning need for freaking crystals?
The next time I went to the mall, the store was gone.
“The Left Handed Shop” was at The Rocks in Sydney (near the Harbour Bridge) for decades. I don’t know if it’s still there. They did sell some marginally useful stuff like scissors, but it was mostly overpriced novelty crap like clocks that run backwards.
Also in Sydney, on Parramatta Road, there is “Letterbox World”. I always get a giggle out of that when I drive by.
Another one is The Sydney Doll Hospital, complete with red crosses and such on the awnings. Specialised, but I bet many a mum and dad has made a mercy dash in there, bawling little girl in tow.
“Off The Rails”, now an internet business only, used to have a storefront. It sold old railway memorabilia such as brass luggage racks, station clocks, and the like.
One thing I’ve noticed about these weird businesses is that they seem immune from “location location location”. Apart from the Left Handed Shop, which was in a tourist mecca and relied on impulse buyers, the others were all in out of the way suburbs. I guess if you really need that favourite doll fixed, or you have your heart set on a railway clock, you will get in the car and make the dedicated journey.
“Condoms to Come”, I’d assume.
I used to work near a Velcro store, which sold nothing but that stuff. I always wanted to go in and buy enough to make a Velcro suit, like David Letterman had. Sadly, it closed a couple of years ago.
As for flag stores, there’s one in the next town over. It may seem specialized, but it is the place to go if you need any sort of non-US national flag, state/provincial flags, etc. And I believe they have an American flag that’s made from American-grown cotton that’s dyed in the US, woven in the US and sewn in the US, just in case you really, really care.
Yep, there’s one in Norfolk, Virginia, too. It’s been there for over a decade that I know of…
They had one of these just two blocks from my house, when I was a lad in Winnipeg. The Crystal Connection, it was called. I spent a lot of my allowance there… mostly because I thought the crystals were cool. I still have all of them.
There’s a shop in the downtown mall here in San Antonio called Primarily Purple.
All they sell is purple shit.
They’ve been there as long as I can recall, at least a decade.
Don’t get it.
Butt – of course! Do they have a website and some T-shirts? Mugs? Screensavers?
Next you’re going to tell us there’s a used condom shop in an upscale mall. And they’re going to run ads in the Super Bowl.
In Parramatta there are two - a futon shop and a shop that sells only maps and globes. Both have been there as long as I can remember although the futon shop did move some years ago.
At the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, one can find:
[ul]
[li]A flag store[/li][li]A store devoted to cheese. It’s good cheese; in fact, it’s awesome cheese, but it’s still cheese.[/li][li]There used to be a store that had only garlic products of various kinds. I love garlic, but I have limits.[/li][li]And a store selling hot sauces of varying degrees of heat.[/li][/ul]
I’m sure there are more, so I’ll post the list and let someone else have a chance.
Robin
And this is unusual? There are several around here - just as there are several shops devoted to fruit&veg, fish or (my favourite) wine.
We also have a chain of sausage merchants who can supply you with sausages which do NOT contain lips, bungholes, rusks or chemicals. Now that **is **fairly unusual, in the UK at least
It’s not enormously obscure, but I work near a shop called Smokers Gifts - everything for the discerning nicotine addict. A carton of Gitaines Blonde? A selection of meerschaum pipes? 
A lighter shaped like an M60 machine gun? :eek: They have it all.
Huh – once again we have same in Montreal: Ungava Futons (though they also sell bedding) and the Cartothèque.
(Was replying to don’t ask.)
We also have a futon place and a flag store. I thought those were kind of weird. But the strangest has to be a shop that sells nothing but ribbons. You can get ribbons in any fabric store and also in many general merchandise type stores, so I don’t really see the point in a store that sells nothing but ribbons.
At a gift store called The Gift Box, I made a purchase … as a gift. I asked for a gift box. And was told they didn’t have any. Gift. Boxes. At. The. Gift. Box.
We have HUGE stores here owned by a company called Kingdom Dates. If you need dates, they got them! Saudi dates, Jordanian dates, Egyptian dates, date syrup, date cakes, fresh dates, dried dates, date paste.
Yes sir, if you need dates, get over to the Kingdom Dates superstore near you.
There used to be a “Sox Appeal” store in Tyson’s Corner. I think “S&S Handbags” has that location now.
Ballston Common has a “Socks Exchange” and a “Dinette Design”, I’m not sure if the former only sells socks but I do know that the latter only sells dinette sets.
We also have some “Discount Cigarettes” stores around here; I’m pretty sure all they sell are cigarettes and lighters.
In Palm Springs near where my grandfather lives, there’s a Date Museum. Go there for dates of every variety, date shakes, date memorabilia, and the short movie on the Love Life of the Date.
They grow a lot of dates in Palm Springs.
In Buffalo, there’s Ruda’s, a store that sells almost nothing but polka records. It’s been around forever, so apparently there’s enough of a demand for polka records in the area to maintain a profitable operation. In the early 1990s, there were a couple of stores in Buffalo that sold nothing but darts and flights. Buffalo also has ubquitous Catholic supply stores, where you can stock up on Infant of Prague statues and the like.
Not too far from my house in Cleveland, there’s a Hebrew bookstore and a Kosher chocolate store. Go into the Cedar-Taylor area in Cleveland Heights, and you’ll find a clothing store that specializes in Orthodox Jewish apparel. Revolution Books isn’t that far away; it’s a communist bookstore.
In my old Denver neighborhood, there was a store that sold nothing but pinatas.
In Mission, Kansas there’s a good-sized store selling nothing but water filters – The Better Water Store – a tiny store selling nothing but used mystery books, and another small shop selling nothing but dog food. In Country Club Plaza in nearby Kansas City, there is a retail dog treat bakery.
In the late 1990s, a store that was a fixture of every upscale shopping mall was Successories, which sold nothing but motivational posters.
Are there still old-fashioned hat stores outside of NYC?