There used to be a coffee shop in my town. Every day they had a two-part secret phrase that would let you get drugs, but it sounded like an order. I think I activated it one time. “Can I please get a double-double with whip cream?” “Sure. How’s your dog Mittens?” “I have no dog?!” Later, the coffee shop shut down because they got caught drug trafficking. They would double cup the coffee orders that had the drugs, and put the drugs in between the paper cups.
That’s a fun way to do it.
This was an entire episode of Castle (the guy from Firefly) except it was a Pizza shop.
I’ve never seen Castle, but I was pretty sure you were referring to Nathan “the guy from Firefly” Fillion. Ouch.
Captain Hammer?
Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck
The uh… The rookie…
I remember reading a story about something like that at KFC. And the code phrase was you wanted an extra biscut or something.
One of our customers operates our of two leased “office” trailers next to an old pole barn in the middle of a corn field.
Firm there, they “operate” 17 different companies, all demanding separate billing from us.
There’s no WAY it’s legit. They have more “official” registered companies than they have office employees.
Could it be a landlord situation? It’s pretty cheap to open an LLC. Sometimes landlords will open many of them, an LLC for every rental property they own. It protects them from liability. If something goes really wrong and a tenant sues them for big $$$, the most they risk losing is the single rental house the tenant is renting.
Won’t somebody please think of the landlords?
Ironically that’s one of the things they don’t claim to be involved in.
To list some of the things they claim to do
Construction
Hydro excavating
“Tribal Economic Development”
Native American health insurance
“Health” supplements (think: “vitality” pills)
Renewable Energy projects
Manufacturing
Finance
Industrial development (though never actually heard of a won bid)
(all of these entities are “owned” by a Native American- which I’ve alwas suspected is for tax benefit purposes)eh. you know what? let em.
The feds (and white men) have fucked them around for 400 years. Let 'em grift everything they can.
The auction centre every time they sell art (or whatever some of that stuff is supposed to be).
The “Water and Donut Store” where they get mad if you ask for donuts, say it’s not the right time of day for donuts (all times of day/night are the wrong time, but there are always three or four stale, lonely donuts in the large glass donut cases) and have a station where you may, for a small fee, fill your water jugs with minimally filtered tap water. 🤨
say it’s not the right time of day for donuts
This feels like it’s taken right out of a video game.
We have a local chain of antique shops, very high-end
Never see anyone come or go
We’re lousy with antique shops here, but there is this one that is only open two days a week, for a few hours. They just sell thrift store quality junk and discounted (new) disposable kitchenware. They start cleaning 30 minutes before “closing time” and don’t let you in the store.
There is a possibility that all of their real business is online and they just keep the storefront open with the crap stuff so they can claim to be a brick and mortar store.
Unless they’re a distributor or operating under a different name online I can’t seem to find anything
Their 3 separate ornate stores in a town with a population less than 20k do not direct anyone online
Used to ship auto parts from a company called ‘Specialty Products Company’.
“what’d you guys sell”
“IDK… ‘Products?’…”
Still not convinced they aren’t a money launderer.
There’s all sorts of brands like that on RockAuto for auto parts. FAMOUS BRAND is one. They sell $7 brake pad sets, maybe it’s a brand that shouldn’t be famous.
I suppose there could be business in procurement of “specialty products”. These guys do all the shopping around or find someone to make that one odd part you need or figure where to get 50,000 packages of foobar and how to ship/store it while you continue on with your life.
we have what seems like about 15 mattress stores along one stretch of road, and we also have a store that sells nothing but bar stools. I’ve often thought that about those places…
There was a podcast episode about this. I want to say freakonomics or similar.
Iirc, the margins on mattresses are crazy. People will comparison shop, not realizing that many of the stores are subsidiaries of the same company. Stores often don’t have the exact mattress (different models at different stores making pricing matching impossible) so you’re down to making gut decisions.
The margins might be high, but I can’t imagine there is enough business to justify that many stores. How often do people actually go buy new mattresses?
Once or twice a day
I’ve heard most of the shops sell the same matrassen, but they just give them different names so you cannot compare prices. Which means you can make prices anything you want as long as you have a somewhat believable story about the quality.
There is an “unlicensed” car repair shop in my town. They always service upper-price class, new-looking cars with license plates from far away. Never actually seen anyone working on them, but the suit wearers that collect the cars always seem happy. Not fishy at all, no need to investigate.
Uber
There’s a shoe store near me. It stands alone in an almost non walkable part of a street. I never see a car in the parking lot. It’s always open and it has been there for, like, 15 years or more. It’s impossible that that store is profitable.
I keep thinking about the pizza store that was opened as a front for the mafia but did such good business that they just quit doing the mafia thing and just sold pizzas full-time
Sounds like the comic book origin story for Godfather’s Pizza.
I miss the little mob money laundering pizza place that I went to as a kid. Absolutely amazing pizza. Never the same after the feds shut down the drug trafficking ring behind it all and deported the owner.
On the flip side, there’s a local pizza place where I currently live that’s fucking terrible. Some of the worst pizza I’ve ever had. It made me wonder how they could stay in business. Then I found out that name of the business happened to also be the name of the local mafia family.
Local places are always one or the other: either they’re the best thing you’ve ever eaten and you can’t wait to get back there and have it again, or they’re just the worst. I guess that applies to mafia fronts, too.
There’s an Italian restaurant in Denver (Gaetano’s) that was opened in the 40s to give the mob wives something to keep them busy and to launder money. The mob is long gone, but the restaurant is still pretty popular.
It’s good stuff too!
Had an amazing Chinese restaurant near my old place, really excellent food but always completely deserted. They always seemed so surprised that when we called for takeout and whenever we collected it they’d chat about how busy they’d been, and how bus loads of tourists stop by, it just happens to be empty right now… Uhuh. Surrre. I live in this street, I don’t see busses of anyone. But the food was consistently excellent, so they must have actively not advertised because otherwise they’d been super popular.
A maybe-related but maybe-not story: I heard someone talk about walking into an out-of-the-way pizza place. Inside, there were no customers, but there was one employee and there seemed to be a few guys in suits just standing around talking to him. Everyone there was surprised to see anyone walking in, and even more surprised when he ordered a pizza. The pizza took ages to make, like over a half hour, but he did get a pizza; they handed it to him and hustled him out the door without even taking his money. I think they might’ve even locked the door behind him, I don’t remember.
The way the story goes, he took it home and ate it, and it was the absolute best pizza he’d ever had in his life. But every time he tried to go back after that, the place was closed.
I heard a very similar story, except it was one Italian grandma with a bunch of dudes in suits. She proceeded to serve him the single largest, most elaborate, and most delicious Italian dinner he had ever had. Apparently he could see into the kitchen, and she was making everything from scratch. He was there for like two hours, and she just kept bringing more plates out even though he hadn’t actually ordered anything. All because she was so excited to finally have someone to cook for. She even sat with him to chat, and was clearly happy to just have someone except the angry-looking dudes in suits to talk to. IIRC the suits didn’t even take payment before he was ushered out of the door.
He tried to go back like a week later, but the place was totally deserted.
Your story is so familiar, I wonder if maybe I misremembered that one.
Thought I’d read your exact post before even :)
Whoa, this is like…real-time archaeology of my own brain. I know for sure I’ve read this tweet before (when I was writing it, I was about to write “New Jersey” but that didn’t sound right so I left the state off entirely). I bet I probably have also heard the Italian grandma story, and mixed them both in my head because what are the odds that there are three such stories? (including the one I posted originally about the mafia front that went legit because the pizza biz was better).
Yeah, the one table i saw eating in was a group of young guys in smart suits looking very serious.
There was a printing shop where I used to live. This was back in 2017ish. I lived there 3 years, and would walk by it all the time bcz i lived close by. I never saw a single customer go in there in the three years I lived there. They were money laundering.
I’ve never physically been in a print shop in my whole life but I’ve certainly used them many times by phone/mail/web.
‘Smartphone repair shop’ near where I live. Has always light on (24/7 confirmed), but nobody inside. At times an ad flag (those 2mt tall with the shop name on it) comes out and is near the entrance.
One time I managed to catch a guy behind a counter and entered for asking if they had some spare parts (I think it was a battery) and he looked fucking disgusted just because I dared to enter. Useless to say, they did not have any spare parts.
As of today (4 or 5 months), not a single client entered.
Also, that shop that sells completely random stuff (chandeliers, dolls, weird stautes statues, horrible carpets and so much more junk), never seen it open but have been there for like at least 30 years.
Also, that shop that sells completely random stuff (chandeliers, dolls, weird stautes statues, horrible carpets and so much more junk), never seen it open but have been there for like at least 30 years.
Oh yeah, we also have this in my city, in quite a prime spot of the old town. However since it’s such an old shop, I’m not sure if it just belongs to a family that owns (not rents) that space since generations (and isn’t really sure what to do with it except for “selling” that stuff).
Yeah that was my first thought, I’ve seen a ton of those old stores that are just abandoned with inventory still inside, even went exploring one once, second floor was starting to fall in, I didn’t dare enter the basement because it felt like the beginning of a slasher movie… Owner lives a few houses down the road and just continues paying his taxes so he doesn’t care…
Also, that shop that sells completely random stuff (chandeliers, dolls, weird statues, horrible carpets and so much more junk), never seen it open but have been there for like at least 30 years.
We had one of those. It turns out it was owned by a rental agent, and he just used it to store the random stuff he’d use to furnish appartments with to rent out.
We were excited to learn of a new restaurant opening, an all-day breakfast and lunch place, like an upscale Denny’s with a liquor license.
Hmm. That sounds more ghetto than summer lazy patio time with friends should.
Anyway, they finished setting up 4 years ago. At most I see 2 cars in the lot on the way past and no one seems to ever be inside.
Either they’re laundering serious cash or they’re somehow bankrupting a restaurant in an area that needs an option other than pizza and subway.
…have you ever gone?
Rug stores. There’s around twelve of them along a couple miles of road. How many rug stores could one city possibly need?
