In the city I grew up in, there’s a Chinese restaurant near my home that never gets packed, not even on busy weekends. I’ve also never seen more than 2 customers at a time eating there. And yet, it’s outlasted every single restaurant in the vicinity for 3 decades. That, and there’s always an expensive car or two parked in front.

There are several! It's kind of a problem in my city but none of the civilians care because somehow they have the best food

It's a public secret that "Winkel 137" (EN: "Shop 137") in Rotterdam is a front for illegal activity, most likely drugs. It's never open during normal hours, the shelves are barely stocked, and no one ever really enters the place. It's been there for as long as I can remember though.

If you look at the place in Google maps you can even see some weird ducts coming out of the wall on the above floor, presumably to clear out some of the vapors coming from the shop.

There is a carpet store and restaurant near my house, and in the three years I've lived here I can't recall seeing anyone buy anything or even visit either store a single time.

Once my partner and I actually walked over to check it out and the carpet store was closed and all of the windows were covered. It was like 4 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, so I can't imagine why it would be closed.

There's supposedly a lot of Russian gang activity in my area, so I'm assuming it's just a front for them but I've never really confirmed it.

Used to go to a night club that must have been up to something. The prices, both membership and drinks were so low it is either fake booze or another income. The drinks seemed fine.

The old pizza place used to be owned by a big drug dealer and you could rig up, order a special topping o. The top and you could get weed over the counter.

Then my local chicken fast food restaurant did the same but you got to go through the drive Thu.

They had to close it down and deep clean because they were selling everything lol.

In the town I live in one of the worst kept secrets is a small hundred year old mixed use 2 or 3 story building. The Laundromat at the bottom with a handful of old washing machines and dryers is always locked and never actually open. Former tenants have publicly stated it's purely a front because the landlord doesn't want to bother with a commercial tenant but because of the zoning it needs a commercial space on the ground level so they maintain a fake laundromat

My barber used to have basicallyno customers, his family members as the employees (shite) and one day went ahead and got cctv cameras installed and had a backroom that was well protected. Later the shop and the people mysteriously disappeared suddenly.

I live fairly close to a place notoriously filled with drug dealing gangs. One summer 3 pet fish stores and 4 barber shops opened and within a couple of month they were all closed.

When I was in Seattle there is this pizza place in a suburban neighborhood that only open for 3 hours 4 days a week from 2:00 to 5:00. All of the workers were the same ones every day and they all three looked no nonsense but friendly enough when you ordered .

The pizza was really good and the calzones were fantastic, so I would go there often, but I almost never saw another customer in the place even though they had at least twenty tables with four chairs at each table set up in two giant dining rooms.

And they were in and out of the way spot with a very small sign. And I think at the most I ever saw one table taken up when I went there and that was only once.

And I never waited in line.

It just seemed like a really odd disposition for a pizza place that obviously needed to pay for a pretty high overhead considering how much space it took up.

Burrito place near me. They cost $3 for a regular and then $5 for a specialty. No way they're surviving on that much money renting in a strip mall. I only ever see 1 or 2 other people in there at most even during lunch or dinner

There's an ice-cream shop in my town that I 100% know is a front because the partner of its owner got done for drugs dealing, sex trafficking, and possession of illegal firearms a couple of years after it opened.

Red Rooster. It's a national chain restaurant here in AU with outlets in every major city, you never see anyone in there and nobody knows anyone who eats there, but they never seem to have any trouble staying open.

Ask any Australian about Red Rooster. franchise chain that can be found all over the place, yet no restaurant ever seems to have customers either in store or the drivethrough, at least not in the volumes you would expect they require to stay open. Its a real enigma, but their chicken is S-tier

I have a vacuum repair shop in an old warehouse building a couple blocks from me. It has almost no signage except a neon "open" sign sand a small "vacuum repair" sign on the door. I have never seen anyone walking in there

This one time at oh fuck it just read this shit.

Hartford Police made a major drug bust at a business called Hot Mama's posing as a restaurant on Franklin Avenue shortly before 7 p.m.

https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/hartford-county/hartford/hartford-drug-bust-marijuana-fentanyl-cocaine-investigation/520-d367ba2c-cc87-45b4-ab97-76dd652c54da

Yep, we have really expensive fashion boutiques on the promenade where I live. Nobody seems to enter and shop there. Ever. There's usually a shopkeeper, female, who sits there all day, adjusting the clothes.

Cell phone repair business nearby. It operates out of a small booth next to a supermarket, charges double what the competition in an actual store next door does for phone accessories and repairs, and a dodgy looking boss type guy visits often. I honestly think it's a front for stealing smartphone components or something similar

Yup. Currently here in NZ, and there are a few almost-always-empty eateries that even survived COVID. Very sus overall haha.

Long John Silvers, of course.

Not my town, but there is a junk shop in main railway station, (sells clothing, shit like t-shirts with weed prints, pipes, random little trinkets). I can only assume rent is very expensive in such a central location, and I really can't think of any way how that place is profitable. I only visited once as a teen since they sold us weed pipes even though I was underage. -There is a actual tobacco shop nearby, with much better selection. -There is never any customers -None of the products sold are very valuable, so they would have to sell lot of them to make profit -If you really wanted to buy cringe t-shirt, there is many shops for that around as well, all of which are well known compared to this one

Many business have gone under during the years in that location, replaced with others, but somehow this one place has been there over 10 years.

There was a ton of self storage places popping up around town by some company that with green branding (I dont remember their name). They bought up all this property that would have been better suited for retail space (one near me was specifically blocked by locals for being an eyesore, unless they met some demands), built huge multi floor storage complexes, and then immediately sold it off. Most of em got bought by Public Storage and repainted orange.

Like what? That had to have been a front for some money laundering or some shit. Like they clearly had no intention of running those places after constructing them.

I mean I live in Berlin...

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.

Turkish barbers, I'm just curious as to why there are so many. My town has like 5/6 places to cut your hair, at least. Mostly Turkish places.

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 once went to a Vietnamese restaurant in Lancaster PA. Time comes to pay and for some reason we needed to go to the back room to pay. I walked in there and it was like one of the movie scenes where someone walks into an old west saloon or something and the music stops. In real life the music kept playing but there was a group of really rough looking old Vietnamese guys huddled around a pool table all smoking cigs who stopped what they were doing and went silent to just stare us down. It honestly looked like that scene in it’s always sunny where frank is playing cards with a bunch of Vietnamese guys. There were dudes sitting at a little bar, some women cleaning some sort of food at a little table. I don’t know that it was a “front,” but I definitely felt like I had walked into like the Vietnamese mob headquarters or something. Honestly like a mafia movie or something, just replace Italians with Vietnamese.

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

There’s a medical supply store in my town I went in one time because my mom needed a crutch and everything was covered in dust. I went online and a bunch of people were saying that it’s just a front to commit insurance fraud.