Asklemmy

We have a Mexican store here (one of several), but people come from ~90 miles to come to THIS one. None of the others in town, just this one. There’s a ton of others between here and there but this one is special. It’s not fake documents because I know other places that have those.

Not sure what they’re doing but they’re always busy and a ton of out of town/out of state people come and go.

Yes. It looks super dingy, and I've never seen anyone go in there.

But the main clincher is they had PS5's right up the height of their rarity. Super suspicious.

But it worked so I guess that's the main thing. I was half expecting him to ask if I wanted any drugs or a "new friend", but no.

I'm convinced that calzones aren't real, and any place claiming to sell them is a front.

No, but there is a shoe repair shop that I wonder about. Is it even possible to repair modern shoes?

There's this corner store in my town where you can also pick up packages. Everything about it seems half-assed, their opening hours are short and in the middle of the day and the store has some displays with overpriced expired candy although they couldn't be arsed to fill all the shelves with something. It's hard to know if they're open or not because they can't be bothered to put up signs on the sidewalk or something.

Based on the smell, the energy level of the staff and the wide variety of joint paper on sale in almost 100% sure the place is a front for weed.

There's a car repair shop that is basically just a private garage, no sign, no ads, but on the regular, you see brand new, expensive cars with license plates from far away being "fixed" there. Always only takes an hour tops.

There is also a known drug dealing hot spot on the car park across the road of the car shop.

At one point in Toronto I counted 10, yes ten, perfume shops on Yonge St from bloor to Dundas. I swear one of the shelves in one of them would have to be a secret door.

It's been many years since I was there but there's a ski shop in Gainesville Florida.

There is a person who sells bags on my high street. He has some cheap chiness watches up front, and actually uses the shop to sell fake watches (which is illegal, duh). I am 100% sure of it because I was going to buy one (but then I decided I would be too ashamed to wear a fake watch).

Also potentially a "tech" shop. Everything was so expensive, I've never seen people enter or leave, and when I asked about a device, they didn't evsn know the spscs for it. How the hell are you selling a computer if you don't know the specs for it? And why would a 32GB USB cost £12? Seems a bit much.

DeLorean Motor Company’s Midwest sales office used to be just down the street from me, up until a few months ago. Never saw anyone in it, but I think I did see a DeLorean outside it once.

Pretty much every small business in my village to be honest... I have never in my life seen any customer in there, and yet they have been open for years.

Nice try, FBI.

Mattress firm

We live across a back alley from a hookah bar that was called "A Buck R 2 Lounge". There's a shed in the back where all sorts of ATVs and dirt bikes meet up to terrorize the neighborhood/city, it sounds like we live in the middle of a motocross course. They recently painted the building black with purple trim (as hideous as it sounds) and put a new sign up proclaiming the establishment is now called "Rico's Rush". I wish someone would just burn the place down already, starting with the shed...

We have a scrapbooking store in town that never seems to have business, if it's not a front it's a way to keep the family from getting inheritance

Sun bed/Tanning salons always got my suspicions!

Car Washes. Over the past two years they’ve popped up everywhere and they all seem to be under different names.

There's a restaurant in my hometown of Lexington, KY called ""Frank and Dino's." It's owned by Carlo Baccarezza who has ties John Gotti, who was Italian mafia. He's a horrible person and has been sued by former employees of the restaurant for discrimination.

He opened this place just before the pandemic. It's supposed to be a fine-ish dining establishment with authentic Italian. The prices are high, but the food is terrible. It might be passable for someone who doesn't know authentic Italian. In any case, the restaurant sits empty most of the day, and it doesn't make sense to me why you would open a place like this and just allow it to have a terrible reputation that's mostly empty day in and day out.

Every psychic in NYC

There was a woman's beauty supply store across the street from a place I used to work. Never anyone there except once a month there would be a steady stream of very expensive cars all driven by men....maybe they were buying for their wives.