Asklemmy

Our small, rural town had a bar change hands a couple times over the past few years. One day several murdered out Mercs, one an AMG, start parking in front of it. Not to stereotype, but they were greased up, wearing tracksuits and gold chains, guys from the Balkans are driving those cars and operating the bar. Never went in while they were around, but within a year, one of those guys got caught by DEA trying to move some serious weight of cocaine and meth.

The bar shut down pretty quickly after that.

Mattress firm

This pizza place opened in an area that is flush with well established takeaway spots. We ordered from it once and it was BAD. The bases were frozen and the meat was clearly sandwich meat from a supermarket. Whenever we pass it by, it's open but there are NEVER any customers.

The online reviews are bizarre, they're either one star reviews with detailed explanations of how shitty the food is or 5 star reviews with no comments.

Yet somehow this place is STILL open despite being surrounded by superior competition and always being empty. There is absolutely no way it's not a front for something.

Not my town, but the town I used to live in had a store that appeared to only sell very old lampshades from the 1970s and I never saw a single customer go in there but it was always open. I'm 100% sure it was a front for the local crime syndicate.

There's a beauty supply place where the inside of the store is just rows and rows of generic amazon junk. The thing is .. that place gets extreeeemely high amounts of traffic and people even leave their engines running while visiting this place. It's just so suspicious seeing as the place is just a junk-shop for amazon teir beauty supplies

There is a solar tanning parlor of sorts in a street close to us. I might just live in a bubble where noone would ever go to one of those parlors, but it seems to be open pretty late, and it feels like there are often some unsavoury people going in/coming out. It's become a running joke that it's a front, to be honest don't have a clue but I wouldn't surprise me.

It's gone now but for a long time we had a 24hr fruit shop.

There used to be one I just couldn't understand. It was one of those stores you commonly see on the road side with many products related to our local culture. They could theoretically make a ton of money selling that stuff to tourists if the store was next to a gas station or something, but it was deep inside the town in a very low traffic street, with no advertisement. Non-tourists would have a need for their products once every few years at most and it could be found on regular stores as well. There was just no way that store could be profitable.

But then they started selling rotisserie chicken and I became their regular. A couple years later they shut down.

Almost any cash only retail business in 2023 is highly suspect outside of some outlier situations like rural markets

Years ago I lived in a small town on the edge of a new town in the UK and there was a shop that was rarely open but was piled high with used car radios.

There’s a macaron shop near my work that has no business (!) being that large, downtown. It has a very fancy shopfront and website, I’ve called to pretend to order one time and it was quite expensive.

I’ve never even seen cars/vans/bikes/whatever taking away their order there (it’s delivery only).

It’s super weird, macarons are not even that popular around here, theres another better known macaron place that is tiny compared to this one

There’s an Arby’s me and my gf pass by when we drive sometimes, and every time we look at it, there is NEVER anyone inside, and always a single car in the parking lot. We concluded that it has to be front for some criminal operation.

Growing up, I would drive by a restaurant that was called the good view restaurant, it had a single small rectangular window at ceiling height on one side only and maybe three parking spaces that were always empty.

I don’t even know where to start with this one…

There’s the “car wash and bistro”… yeah, they’re definitely serving more than just food in there

There’s the “carnival sweets and treats” that’s got no street sign or sign of any kind, for that matter, tucked in next to a coin laundry. It’s just some lady making funnel cakes, deep fried Oreos and other “carnival food”. As an added bonus, they have free arcade machines out front for you to play while you wait… yeah, I’m sure they bought those with all the money they’re raking in from fried dough…

I’ve got more but these are the two top fronts in my area for sure.

There's a store in my little town that sells gift bags, ballons and teddy bears. Never seen anybody in there, never seen the window display change. Keep in mind this isn't a party store. They only seem to sell those three things. Lord knows what they REALLY sell. Maybe "teddy bears" is slang for some new drug I don't know about.

Classic answer of a mattress store. We have a very busy interesting in town, and they are on all 4 corners. Prime real estate, never a car in the lot.

Absolutely - our local smoke shop in my towns plaza.

There's one that's a limo service that's shady af

For anyone familiar with the south hills of PGH: the Baltimore House

There's an Indian restaurant near me that has been there for years. I've never once seen more than 2 people in there and rarely any ubereats. I once went in to buy samosas and they seemed surprised. It's not a cheap neighborhood so I'm certain the place is a front more than anything.