Weird Businesses in Your Area

In My Humble Opinion
161

There’s a store near here that sells Christian stuff (Bibles, etc.) and extermination products. On their windows they have big signs like “Praise the Lord Jesus” and “Kill mice and roaches dead.”

I used to live near a store that sold . . . well, I’m not sure what they sold. They had shelves filling their big front windows, and on these shelves were a couple random things like chess sets and used stuffed animals and old cans of food. There wasn’t anything for sale inside the store, only the things in the windows.

162

Waukegan has a store that sells flags. It seems too small a city to have such a specialized business, but it has been around for a long time.

163

not a weird business, but…

This building has had at least 10 failed restaurants in it since I moved to St. Pete, FL in 1986. It has also been empty much of this time. No restaurant ever lasted more then 6 months. Now it is a - ya ready?- A restaurant consulting business. I just love this and wonder if the owners of this latest business know about this building’s history.

164

In the town next to me, there’s a Daisy’s Mexican bakery.

165

I’ve got to revive this thread, after a new, large sign was put up in this establishment’s window.

ALL HAIL THE 45TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PEOPLE’S REVOLUTIONARY CONGRESS!

Yup … there’s an honest-to-goodness brick-and-mortar communist bookstore not too far from me, on Mayfield Road in Cleveland Heights.

The place is always open … but always empty. They don’t have much of an online presence. I’m wondering … even if it is non-profit or a co-op, how can they pay the rent? I also wonder about the business model and viability of lesbian bookstores that I’ve seen in many bohemian urban neighborhoods.

166

This thread reminds of the combination baseball card/bridal shop I worked at when I was but a lad. (In Erie, PA, circa 1986.)

167

A month or so ago, Mr. Armadillo and I decided to buy a chest freezer for the ArmadilloPup’s food. I was hoping I could get a good deal on a used one, so I went around to the couple of used appliances stores here to see what I could find. Most of them were clean and staffed with helpful people. There’s this place called “Reliance Appliance” downtown, and I stopped by there one day.

There were no lights on, the place was lit mostly by what sunlight was coming in through the plate glass windows which made up the front of the store. They were so grimy though, that there wasn’t much making it through. The appliances they had seemed to be mostly washers and dryers, which were all filthy, and covered in garbage, mail, newspapers, food wrappers, a half a loaf of bread, tools everywhere, just… crap. There were appliances lined up like a maze, but only in the front half of the store. Halfway back, there was a row of decrepit refrigerators, behind which was a mountain of… crap. Machine parts, furniture, garbage, just literally a row of 'fridges holding back a tsunami of chattel.
Did I mention the mood music? Bad hair metal (maybe Whitesnake?) playing at top volume. By top volume, I mean I had to shout as loud as I could to get the attention of the, er, proprietor. Three times before he looked up from the girly mag he was perusing. I hollered about wanting to buy a chest freezer. He shouted back “what?” “CHEST FREEZERS!” “What have you got?” “NO, I want to buy one.” “Oh”… He stood up… and up, and up, the guy must have been 6’7". I could be lying about this, as I’m only 5’4"–but the guy was extremely tall. He looked as though he hadn’t changed his clothes, or showered, since 1982. Changed style or his actual clothing, I mean.

He came out from around the desk and stood WAY too close to me. I’m sure he was saying something, but I couldn’t hear over the Dokken. My “Get the Hell Out of Here” meter was sounding a major alarm at this point, so I did.

We bought one new, from Sears.

I have driven by the place a couple times since. You know how stores will often put some merchandise on the sidewalks out front to attract customers? He does this, occasionally, but it looks more like someone drove by and heaved a washing machine off the back of a pickup truck at 70 MPH. Sometimes there’s parts laying around, things laying on their sides, doors missing… I keep trying to figure out what kind of “side business” he must have going on to afford prime downtown rent for such a rat hole.

168

We have something like that in fresno, about 50 yards from the best restaraunt in town. Me and my wife were joking about how if you criticized the food the wait would just say

[snotty french maitre’d accent]
Maybe you would prefer the cuisine at Chineese Food, Hamburger, and Donut.
[/snotty french maitre’d accent]

169

There are two weird businesses, both there for years and still there, in CA, on Hwy 198, on the way to the giant sequoias in Sequoia National Park, so I’m sure some of you have seen them.
First: A mini-golf place, miles from any town. There’s always a car or two parked putside but almost never anyone playing because it’s MILES from anywhere. For years, they were adding a pond, then bumper boats, then a train to go around the whole course, then a fountain, then a mini statue of liberty. I lived near the Park and had to drive 45 miles to go big grocery shopping and would pass this place and rarely was anyone playing. We stopped a few times with the kids and weeds were growing all through the course, but the improvements just kept coming…no money for maintenance but money for expansion? From where?
Second: A concrete orange, painted bright orange, repainted every few years. A fruit stand selling mostly just oranges, a do-it-yourself honor-system, you got yourself a bag of oranges and dropped the money in a hole in the counter. But every so often a large and silent man, very unkempt, would stand off in the shadows and say nothing. If you said hello, he’d say “Put the money in the hole”.
Those oranges were the best, but I wouldn’t go there alone or alone with the kids anymore.

170

Ahem

171

In chronological order:

In a little town in Jamaica I saw “Dave’s Carpeting and Auto Supplies.” I checked, it wasn’t even car carpeting. Excellent combo.

Similarly, my college town had the famous “ACME Stove and Video Company” You could rent videos for about a buck fifty, and half of the store was sectioned off. On the other side of the partition was … stoves. All sorts, fireplaces, gas stoves, grills, you name it. Wanted to look at a stove? The clerks were cross-trained. Just grab your video clerk and she could show you some stoves. :confused:

In my current neighborhood is the Flowershop from Hell. I bought some roses there one time. A man and his wife, and a store absolutely jammed with flowers. There’s one path from the door to the cash register (don’t trip over the owner’s dog) and they are unbelievably unorganized. They couldn’t find my payment in the giant Stack of Payments (this was during Valentine’s rush) but luckily the wife remembered talking to me on the phone. The guy talked my ear off the whole time about philosophy, while I felt the foliage start to wrap itself around me like a giant vampire plant.

I haven’t been back since.

172

There’s a storefront down on Union Turnpike called ‘Albany Glass,’ if memory serves. Union Turnpike is a fairly high-rent commercial zone, so its continued existence is even stranger. It’s a huge property, with a big storefront FULL of tons of mirrors. The mirrors are all shapes and sizes, some etched with designs or insignias. It has their business hours posted in the door, but I’ve NEVER seen anyone come in or out, and the door has always been locked.

Clearly, it’s a front for something. I just want to know what! :smiley:

Thanks.

173

2 of the strange combos:

  1. I used to go weekly to get my flattop trimmed up for $5 at Billy Sunshine’s Barber and Plumber in St. Pete, FL. Great haircut, too.

  2. On the outskirts of Tallahassee, for most of my life, stood a Hubcaps and Exotic Birds shop. It was a husband and wife thing - he sold birds, she sold (mostly used) hubcaps.

174

Uhh… based on research I performed, the little buggers can survive in excess of 3 minutes in the microwave. I suspect that unless you incinerate them in the initial nuclear blast, they’ll survive.

175

Those sorts of strange combinations seemed quite common in Florida. I called it “redneck retail.” For example, there’s this this trampoline and shed outlet in Winter Garden. You’ll also find a dirt and shed outlet in Winter Garden. Oh, in that same Dale Earnhardt-reverin’ (may peace and love be with Him) city, you’ll find a combination of a gas station and fried chicken stand.

Before I forget, there’s also a pro wrestling school in … you guessed it, Winter Garden.

There was also an antique and junk store that also included car rental, but unfortunately I don’t have a picture of it.

176

I haven’t seen either of those commercials, but they both sound just about right for this area. Right now there are some pretty terrible ones running. There’s this one for a car lot where this trashy woman in a bathing suit rubs the trucks and the voiceover says “TRUCKS GONE WILD.” So trashy.

The other really bad one is for Taffy’s restaurant. This “superhero” flies around with this plate of gravy which flies off the plate and hits people in the face. It looks like bird crap and the people eat it. So nasty.

As for weird businesses, I don’t know if the hardware store on Green St. had this sign 10 years ago, but it says “GUNS! We buy and sell.” You go in there and it’s like your gearhead uncle’s garage. Nothing is organized, it’s all thrown around and crowded. No guns on display either. It’s strange to have a little hardware store in that expensive lease in the middle of campustown.

177

[hijack]
You’re a Kansas girl! Me too.
[hijack]

We have one of those ‘we sell anything’ stores. It’s called “Discount Merchandise Warehouse” or something. The commercial has a guy wearing a knight type helmet and a half chain shirt, with wire rim glasses and a dopey smile selling a sword and a ‘Kaitlyn’s Metaphysical Corner’ with candles and a ‘psychic’ 40 year old woman in stretch stirrup pants and a long t-shirt. She has a red table cloth over a card table and a “crystal ball”.

We have another store called “Everything But Ice”. It’s unclaimed freight.

178

Ok. Here are my two contributions to this thread:

  1. While on my honeymoon last fall, in a New England State (name forgotten) I filled up my rented mini-van with 87 octane gasoline at an independent gas station. Once I went inside the gas station, I discovered that there was a fully functional Chinese take-out restaurant inside. I didn’t have any of the food, but my new bride actually found the cuisine acceptable.
  2. Marc’s Stores!
    Marc’s is a chain of over 50 stores that have all the items you need to have a grocery store. They also seem to have a pharmacy in most if not all of their stores. So far, so good, and totally normal.
    The odd part is that they also have large supplies of discounted screwball merchandise in the store. Apparently Marc runs out and buys overstock items from stores that are going out of business, for resale in his stores. One day they’ll have 300 shovels on their shelves, and some ornamental lawn gnomes. The next time you come in the shovels will be gone, and they’ll have an unbelievably large collection of dog leashes… frequently at good prices.
    The other quirky parts of the store are that the refrigeration on their dairy/milk/meat is the warmest refrigeration you’ll ever see in a grocery store, and they take checks, but no credit cards.
179

You’re not talking about Mammoth Orange, are you? We used to stop there on the way back from Boy Scout camp, and let me tell you something, after two weeks of boy scout camp food, those were the best cheeseburgers EVER.

180

Oh, and my contribution: here in Palo Alto is a bowling alley which has a built-in Thai restaurant.

We refer to it as the Thai-d-bowl :slight_smile: