Asklemmy

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 bar here that is a money wash for an outlaw biker gang. Everyone knows it. It's the worst kept secret in this town.

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

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 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

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.

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

There is a thrift store in town with a carpet store attached, which is giant but 1/4th full. When we walked in the owner looked surprised we came to look at the thrift section. It was crap, and looked all untouched for a long long time

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

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.

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.

Absolutely - our local smoke shop in my towns plaza.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When I lived in Burlington Vermont, the owner of the skate shop "ridin' high" got in trouble because he was selling drugs out of the skate shop.

Classic.

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

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.

Several. But everyone knows they're most likely being used for money laundering. There's no way those strip clubs are profitable on their own.