My poor Rust Belt town, the downtown is slowly turning into a tourist trap. There was a very chichi high end retail children’s store that has now been rebranded…using a non profit foundation’s name…all owned by the same people. No one goes in or out, no one seems to work there. No one ever makes deliveries there of any kind, although they purport to be part of a non profit dedicated to sending care packages to comfort children in cancer hospitals. None of the clothing or toys ever change or get moved around, they’re not even making an effort.

tl;dr I was wrong.

I used to go to a restaurant that I was sure was a front.

Years ago I was walking home from the gym and I got peckish. I was in one of the less fancy areas of Manhattan so I didn’t think twice about just walking into the first place I saw.

The second I walked in I decided it was a big mistake. This place looked fancy. Nice place settings, real wood furniture, etc. I was dressed like a bum and probably smelled bad.

But the head waiter came out and treated me like royalty. Fresh baked bread, a sauteed flounder that he filleted right at the table and all around baller service at a very reasonable price. I was the only person there but it was early so I didn’t think much of it. I figured that if their food and service was this good when they thought I was a bum this is the place for me. I dropped a 100% tip and decided I’d go once a week and if I ever found a date I’d impress the hell out of her when we roll into a nice restaurant and the head waiter greets me by my first name and treats me like a big shot (aside: the first and only girl I brought there didn’t like their vegetarian options but ended up marrying me anyway).

Ever time we went the place was practically empty. This was one of the less fancy areas of Manhattan but they were still paying Manhattan rent. The food was always top notch and did I mention how awesome the service was? Mooci, the waiter once came back from vacation and insisted that I try some of the moonshine from his Sicilian Mother. Constant freebies too.

We decided there’s no way they could be turning a profit and assumed it was a mob front. Some older NYers may remember when the story broke that SPQR was a mob front, so it seemed pretty likely.

Well a few years ago we went back after moving out of state. The restaurant was under new management and everything sucked. Crappy place settings, shitty generic food and I didn’t recognize anyone there. It turns out they weren’t a mob front. They were just great cooks that sucked at running a business and ran out of money :(

There is a pizza place. We once went in to order food. There was no food, no menu, no drinks. We stood there and asked for a menu. They looked at us like we were nuts. We turned around and left.

All my landlord’s business associates are in the paradise papers. And half of his LinkedIn contacts are russian, so …

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.

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I used to live round the corner from a strange little place that sold cassette tapes (what we used for music and sometimes even data before CDs, for those too young to know). Everyone was convinced it was a front but it turned out it was a world famous tape supplier. Just happened to be based in my quiet little back street.

The newsagents next door to my last place have to have been a front though. Shelves were half bare, only ever stocked with stuff that doesn’t go off. Always two or three guys hanging out in the back room, looking slightly surprised if you wanted to buy something. Cash only, no cards (not that unusual round here but they usually have a minimum purchase rather than just no card machine at all these days).

They were absolute sweethearts. Took loads of deliveries for us, always really nice about it. And that’s more evidence that it’s a front. Proper criminals are the best neighbours anyone could ask for because the last thing they want is complaints bringing the police to their door.

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There was an asian food place in my local mall back when I worked there as a teen. My old boss casually mentioned that it was a human trafficking front. They’d have women from their native country marry for a visa, have them come to US, employ them work at the store, then… I have no idea… I sincerely hope it was for visas and not more nefarious purposes…

There was also a gambling ring going on in the tailor shop of the same mall. But that was whatever.

There are none that I know with 100% certainty, but there are a few types of businesses that are generally known to be fronts where I come from (and I suspect in many cities), and there are a few specific ones I’m confident are fronts.

• Massage parlors are commonly fronts for prostitution all over the world, or offer “extra” services. This is so common that many of them have prominent signs explicitly saying they do NOT.

• I swear, there must be more video stores than there are working VCRs in my city. And they seem to have kept mostly the same stock of VHS tapes for the past 30 years. They are rumored to be fronts for, again, prostitution.

• I have strong suspicions about psychic readers. There are a ton of them, and many are open at odd hours of the night in places that are not busy enough to get any legitimate foot traffic.

• Gyms are all fronts for…gyms. I mean, the gym business is corrupt enough that I feel like that counts.

Rome, Italy. rent for a small store is 800/mo where this store is, and an average salary is about 1200/mo. This antique/junk store sells like 2 things a day(with average price being 5€) always takes unfavorable exchanges and generally isn’t great business-wise, yet it’s been here for 15 years, in a district where most - more reasonable - businesses fail within 2 years.

It doesn’t take credits cards, only cash. There’s a flight simulator controller from the 80s that didn’t sell for a decade.

Maybe I’m just paranoid.

Edit: i still love that store, I’m addicted to collecting old junk (self promotion time: I founded a coin collecting community over at lemmy.ml,its called numismatics) and I go to that store every month or so, it helped me to get rid of some old vynil records from my grandfather in exchange for some cash (obv without receipt) but still, I think it either evades taxes (taking that from granted) or it’s something bigger, like a front for a mafia or something else.

There’s a cafe near me that’s open 24/7. I’ve been in there a couple of times and the coffee is horrible, the last time I visited the guy behind the counter didn’t know how to turn on the espresso machine and had to call his boss.

But I’m 100% certain all those people turning up at 1am are just getting a caffeine hit before heading to the clubs

We have a fireworks shop. They just sell fireworks, and are open all year round. In the UK we have like 4 days a year when it’s acceptable to set them off.

They even have a number in the window for you to ring outside of regular opening hours.

It might as well just be called Mike’s Heroin and Weed Shop.

A lot of car washes popping up near me with a monthly fee unlimited washes program that I’m positive is just a better version of what Walter did in Breaking Bad. Scan your app’s QR code and away you go, meanwhile someone behind the scenes rings it up as a cash sale and throws $15 into the till.

Mattress stores that stay open 24/7, pretty sure you send them a mattress full of cash and they deliver you a mattress full of coke