We’ve got a laundromat on the corner that’s trying everything* to stay in business. At last count, it was a laundromat, gym, ice cream parlor, lunch counter, and notary. Convenient, I suppose, but weird.
*Except maintaining their washers and dryers so they work.
In Oakdale, Ca, there is a BBQ place (House Of Beef) next door to a daycare center (House Of Tykes).
However, it’s separate buildings/addresses and I don’t know for sure if they are owned by the same people or not.
They’ve got nothing on the mystical curios & frogurt shop, though.
Strangest combo I’ve seen in my neck of the woods is a 24-hour diner that has two different brand names on the marquee and sells BBQ/soul food and Chinese food off the same menu. Apparently it’s a mom-and-pop operation where mom and pop had very different ideas about what kind of restaurant they wanted to run and decided to compromise.
There’s also a sub sandwich restaurant in my town which is co-branded with the house painting company situated next door.
There’s a gas station/minimart/auto shop/car wash just off the exit ramp here that sells CDs of the owner’s music as well, but I’m not sure what genre they are and I haven’t bothered to check.
Weird combos I’ve come across include a hardware store/funeral parlour, a zoo/vintage radio museum and a baby clothes/jetski shop (that was local, husband and wife couldn’t agree…)
There was a Chinese restaurant in the strip mall near my house. Their food was pretty good, we used to get takeout on a fairly regular basis.
One day I walked in and saw that one side of the restaurant had now been taken over by a donut shop. It was a very strange combination, with the competing smells of donuts and Chinese food.
Where I used to live in Madison, TN, there was a place called Rollins Corner. It was a series of interconnected businesses including at any given time a gas station/convenience market/carwash, video store, tanning salon, storage facility and barbecue. Pretty much one stop shopping for that neighborhood.
During this time, I met a pharmacist who had graduated around 1960, and for several years, she worked at a business with the husband’s business - the pharmacy - in the back end, and the wife’s business - pet care supplies - in the front end. Right now, there’s an independent pharmacy in one of my city’s bedroom communities that doubles as a Christian bookstore.
I lived briefly in a small town in the Ozarks, and there were all kinds of unusual combo businesses there. Probably the most unusual in that town was a vacuum clean repair shop in the back, and in the front end, it was an all-purpose household consignment shop.
This one struck me as the funniest, I don’t know why.
Back in the 80s I picked up fireworks for Independence Day at a place that also sold fish (the kind people keep in aquariums). I asked him why that particular combination and he said they were right next to each other in the phone book. Sounds legit.
I’ve been to a lot of laundromats that had a bar or liquor store next door. You have to have something to do while the clothes are inthe dryer.
I just thought of another. Aa boyfriend and I went up to the mountains a few years ago and stopped at a military surplus store. Roaming around we found a curtained off back room that was limited to 21 and up. It was an adult toystore.