Restaurants like that always scare me! You wonder how much is prepackaged and microwaved.
WhyNot, I wonder if whoever rents/owns the bakery is using the bakery kitchen to make food? If I had access to a giant kitchen compared to a probably shabby, tiny apartment kitchen, I know where I’d go!
Maybe it’s because of all the posts in this thread, but I had to read that Do Not Enter sign a couple of times before I realized it didn’t say “Except CIA Buses.”
There’s a trick to linking Street Views. When you first do one, it takes up half the page. On the left side of the page, near the top, near the right side of the left side of the page, is a button with a link (chain link) icon on it. You need to press that and copy the url out of the resultant popup.
The van at the side of the building suggests that maybe they went into catering.
Same here! And I was also seeing Bosses.
Yay! Thanks for the tip. 
Did you ask for a cheeseburger instead?
Where near Boston, and what’s the name?
Oh, and as for restaurants of dubious purpose - I knew a couple who owned a restaurant/deli (I met my wife while she was working there), and after years of being in the business, they decided to sell. The folks that wound up buying the place ran it into the ground - the quality of the food went to shit, their business hours went all over the place, they started letting street kids hang out in the restaurant, and it was generally just a horrible place to grab a bite.
The rumor was that they were using it to launder money from some sort of illicit operation, and that toward the end, they were cooking meth in the kitchen and using the street kids to run drug deliveries out of the restaurant.
Needless to say, they defaulted on the loan, and 12 years later, the place is still vacant despite being in a pretty prime spot, which only reinforces the meth rumors.
There was an Italian (!!!) deli near my work that my wife and I decided to try one day. We went in with the intention of ordering sandwiches, only they were out of our top 3 choices of meat (from the menU) and several types of cheeses as well. This place was kind of dank, poorly lit, and there was only one person working there and no other customers.
After that we referred to the place as the “mob front deli.”
Another guess is that the business is closed, but whoever owns it or the building is renting out the kitchen as a commercial kitchen. I know in my area it’s not uncommon for kitchens to moonlight for different uses. For example, a local bread bakery got its start renting a Pasty shop’s kitchen in the wee hours of the morning and selling the bread at the Farmer’s market. I know another woman who is in search of a commercial kitchen to make cakes, cookies, and muffins in to sell locally. You can’t just make a batch of cookies in your kitchen and sell them legally, at least not around here - you have to prove that they were made in a licensed commercial kitchen for health and safety reasons.
Local churches tend to have commercial kitchens as well, and they do the same thing. Basically a certified commercial kitchen is definitely something that can be rented out for a profit.
I think you walked into a Monty Python sketch.
Any DC area Dopers spend time on Capitol Hill at the turn of the century? Kentucky Ave. SE, somewhere in the six or seven blocks between Lincoln Park and the Safeway was the “spy house.” This is an excellent, upper middle class area of DC, about 12 blocks from the Capitol. Very clean. But one house on the corner of (?) and Kentucky (or was it between Licoln Park and Eastern Market? Hmm… but if you know the house you’ll, you’ll know the house) was an extraordinary oddity.
Its windows were constantly covered by… sheets of newspaper. Not old, faded lazy newspaper, but a relatively refreshed set. There were occasional signs of life within (a TV on or heard through an open door), but never any sign of people in or out. I lived in teh area at the time and did a lot of walking around, so while it’s possible that timing was off, I never saw who lived there. Oh, and I think the lights were rarely on. Fodder for the Very Vaguely Creepy thread.
I’ve been up and down the street on Google maps, but it seems like either it’s no longer there (shut down after ten or so years), I misremembered the location, or Large Marge lived there.
Any chance a Doper saw the same place?
I like that the guy named “MaltLiquor” assumes the burger joint is a bar.
I live not far from there in Evanston and drive past it all the time. I’ve noticed the same thing about it, but just assumed it was long-closed for good.
In Lexington, KY there’s a chain of pizza places called Sir Pizza. There are six of them, plus one in Winchester; there used to be a lot more.
I lived in Lexington for eight years and grew up nearby. I never ate at Sir Pizza. I probably asked everyone I knew at one point or another–most of whom were college students, no strangers to pizza–and I never talked to anyone who had eaten at or ordered from Sir Pizza. I never saw anyone eating at one when I drove by. I never saw their delivery cars, even though I saw them all the time from other stores. They barely advertised, while other pizza places blanketed the city.
“Legitimate business front” was the obvious conclusion. I thought pizza restaurants were a little on-the-nose as a front for an organized crime syndicate, but some people don’t do subtlety.
(The more likely truth is that it was a popular chain before I lived in Lexington that mostly got pushed out of the market by the big national companies, and has low enough overhead that they’ve never quite closed.)
I gotta tell you, I love this message board. I learn so many things!
Having said that, I grew up in Chicago, but five years ago moved to Rockford. There is a restaurant there called Lucerne’s. It’s apparently a fondue place. I have been baffled about this restaurant since I moved there. They are hardly ever open, but they are not closed. I think I’ve seen them open twice since I moved to the Rkfd.
I asked someone about it once and they claim that they only open if you call them. I thought that was weird–and I’ve NEVER heard of a restaurant doing something like that. Now I’m thinking about the whole money laundering/front thing.
Anyone else know about this place?
I remember when that bakery was closing. cwSpouse and I bought a boatload of pastries at half price and stowed them in the freezer. After they sold out of foodstuffs, we bought a pile of baking pans and baking sheets. We checked out the kitchen and marvelled at theh room-size bread oven and bowls for the Hobart floor-mounted mixer, big enough to marinate a good-sized missionary. If it wasn’t a legitimate bakery before they went out of business, it was a very convincing imitation.
These days? I dunno. When the building didn’t sell, I assumed that the it was either overpriced or needed so much work that it was unappealing to investors. These days I wonder if the owner died and it’s caught up in probate, or if the owner abandoned it and the city is owed a small fortune in back taxes. That van is creepy, though - it is ALWAYS there.
Several folks upthread beat me to this. I didn’t realize it had sold. That would explain lights going on and off. Renting out the commercial kitchen would make sense, too.
When it was closing, cwSpouse and I flirted with the idea of buying it and running the gluten-free bakery of cwSpouse’s dreams. Didn’t happen, obviously.
Because the only meat they had was SPAM.