There’s even a movie about it
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8704802/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
Oops. I didn’t scroll down far enough to see that the movie is mentioned in the link you posted.
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Not still in existence, but our very small rural town (pop. 3,000) had the very last Grand Union grocery store in the United States. It operated, alone, for several years after all the other Grand Unions had closed.
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All of the mattress stores near me. There are 3 in the upscale mall a mile from me and no one is ever in the stores. We are sure they are a front for something illegal!
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We must have 5 no name jewelry stores in a mall near us. I swear I think they are drug fronts or something. I have no idea how they’d make enough money to pay the mall rent.
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Banana republic and the gap left our mall. I miss them
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I’m inclined to agree. Our mall kicked out those stores years ago, but they now operate a stand alone facility. It’s owned by the family of one of my kid’s childhood friends. They were awesome people… but we have for several years wondered the same, especially since their recent (~5-10 years) spending habits are so out of line, above & beyond, most everyone in our community. How? We have heard the drug rumors, but I hate to believe it. An inheritance perhaps? I don’t want to think that of them, but still…
Hardees
Fuddruckers
Hooters
well Hooters is barely in business - they just had a big round of locations close.
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We have a free standing Long John Silver’s - not paired with anything else. One of my kids fav places to go growing up. They are so unnoticeable in their location….and I’m sure the food can’t be great…but also here anyway, they fill a “seafood fast food option” that no one else does. Maybe that’s what keeps them going??
Our KFC’s got a re-brand and new look on the outside at least (I have not been inside) - I think their staying power is probably NOT with their buckets of chicken but with newer menu choices like chicken bowls or whatever.
Our last Chuck E Cheese finally closed. Long overdue after many rounds of non-friendly behavior there!
How about the little retail stands in the center of mall aisles? I mean, I’m surprised our indoor mall is still in business at all but who goes to any of the little retail spots that take up like 20 square feet of space in the middle of the aisle???
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Some of those kiosks are VERY profitable.
The rent is minimal. The mall provides security, mops the floors, and generates more traffic than they’d get in some low-end strip mall.
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I love Friendly’s ice cream sundaes and was so sad when the only one in my area closed! I think they should have dumped the food part and concentrated on the ice cream.
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I miss the Fribble
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I guess Hooters’ prospects are sagging.
More seriously, I wonder about non-fundamentalist more moderate versions of organized religion. Attendance is way down – although it is up for the more fundamentalist versions (evangelical, Orthodox, etc.). I wonder if denominations will shut down or more or congregations will slowly just downsize. One of the two Catholic parishes in our town shut down to the dismay of its parishioners.
We have an Asian market a few miles from us in a stand-alone store on a minor highway. Whenever we go in there, the shelves are barely stocked and their are one or two customers in a large store. We figured it must be used for money-laundering. On the same road, a few miles closer to our house, there was a Chinese restaurant where the food was not great but the place was relatively busy. The owners had parked outside their three or four very expensive cars (Mercedes AMG, Porsche, etc.). This was when they often got paid in cash and I speculated that that a lot of the cash never got reported as income. Later on, the restaurant closed and I think more than one restaurant has failed in that spot. Probably a lot more profitable if you can minimize taxes.
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The tax angle is small potatoes.
The money laundering angle is where the real action is. Laundromats (no, not a pun), ethnic restaurants, ethnic grocery stores… small businesses where there is cash involved, even in our swipe/tap economy.
And then there is the beauty industry- nail salons and others, which are fronts for human trafficking.
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There are so many mattress stores in our area, it’s really unbelievable. We have 2 large shopping centers in our town, that make one big shopping/retail complex since they blend together and there are 2 mattress stores in that complex, both at either end. I don’t know how they stay in business as there are never any customers in there…they always have sales and always have their doors wide open.
Speaking of mattress stores, the Chuck E Cheese that my kids went to for birthday parties when they were kids, was a mattress store for a long time. Now it’s an Anytime Fitness…
Now there are only two Chuck E Cheese in our whole area and it’s a large metropolitan area.
I was going to say that I wondered how our local bowling alley stays in business, but you drive by on league night and the parking lot is completely full. I imagine birthday parties keep them in business too.
Our Long John Silvers went out of business and became a Thai restaurant. The pirate sword door handle is still there.
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Yep, our Long John Silvers (which was the only one left in our area) went out of business too. Now, it’s a Mexican restaurant (not a chain) and they kept the drive-through. I could do a whole thread on how many Mexican places we have in our area. We have a lot of Thai places near us as well. Our favorite Thai place is never crowded, but I think a lot of their business comes from take-out orders. H and I ate there the other day and there was a constant stream of people picking up take-out and orders for delivery. I think that’s the case with a lot of the Thai restaurants in our area.
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I have always wondered why there are so many nail salons.
Our little city has always had a Long John Silvers - at least as long as H can remember. The current one is the 3rd building built on that site. It’s nice and packs a decent crowd. H and I eat there from time to time on Saturdays.
Of the typical fast food burger joints, Hardees is the least attended. We wonder how any of those locations stay in business, especially one location in particular. We were remarking last night how crowded BK was. Chick Fil A always is packed, of course. McDs is somewhere in between. We’re not big enough for a Chuck E Cheese.
Someone mentioned Belks, and I definitely agree there. I know our store is really hurting financially as a co-worker works there in the evenings/weekends. Our mall in general is pretty sad. The food court has a cookie place and a chinese place that is usually closed. Chick Fil A does have a location inside that does OK, though nothing like the standalone location. Belks is the only department store left, and I’d estimate at least 2/3 of the mall is empty. You can walk from one end to the other and sometime not pass a single person. It was a great place to hang out during covid.
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There was a Chinese food restaurant near where I used to live. At some point they got “raided” and the police found a significant amount of “cold hard cash” (in the freezer). It seems like these days almost nobody has cash (which makes me feel bad for tips sometimes) so that kind of thing may be less common.
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