In my case–the question should be what retail does your town need. I live in a small MA town (pop. 6K) and we have no grocery store, no pharmacy, no restaurant–except for a pizza place, donut shop, and a gas station that has also sells sandwiches, milk, bread, soda, beer, snacks, etc. There’s also a small cafe at the General Store–which is the only store in the center of town and the only place to get alcohol. (The town was dry until 15 years ago.) The closest grocery stores and other retail outlets are several towns away (about 8 miles). I’ve lived here since my youngest was born (35 years ago) so I’m used to it, and actually like it. Lots of people who move to town complain, but many attempts to develop the one area zoned for retail are voted down at Town Meeting.
My first car was a VW. I’m actually from MA (Which I assume is what the MA stands for?)
Yes–when I first signed up for CC, I chose the name MA (Massachusetts) Dad. Turns out many think it’s mad-dad!
There are so few Honey Dews around in the MA/RI area, and I think they are superior to the giant that is Dunkin. Not a Starbucks fan.
Unfortunately, due to allergies, there is nothing I can eat at either DUnks or HoneyDew. I might swing through for a drink on a very rare occasion (again, very limited options). I find them equally inept at getting my order correct.
If you come across a Gourmet Donuts, give them a try. We have one of those in town as well.
Here is the opposite question: What does your town have not enough of?
Everything other than banks.
Not enough of:
Places that sharpen knives.
Independent hardware stores.
Post office branches.
I think you meant to post in the other thread?
E-bike and e-scooter rentals. They are popular in certain parts of my city, especially in downtown and parks. They seem to make their way into the neighborhoods.
Speed traps…I just completed defensive driving 
There are probably 50 Tex-Mex restaurants in the Quad Cities. Maybe more.
Meanwhile, there are only a handful of Italian restaurants.
That ratio needs to shrink.
I like this subject because I can vent a little.
I am tired of seeing an empty shop become another: real estate agency, hairdresser, or beautician. We have way too many of these and the center of town is a one way road up a hill.
Also, seeing empty spaces become bases for the electrician or plumber, when they have very uninteresting storefronts.
We have a very nice toy shop, an optician that takes care with her window display, several different restaurants, 2 bakers (neither excellent, but okay), a couple of small grocers (expensive but handy), and a bike/motor scooter shop.
I haven’t mentioned everything, but all in all, it’s not that bad. I have noticed an influx (2 on the same road, why?) of “automobile agents”, which I don’t see the point of, and one of those took a beautiful shop and made it ugly, sadly.
Pizza shops and banks.
I would be fine with tons of pizza shops, if they were all good. Tends to be bad to mediocre pizza at most of them.
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State Farm agencies (I’ve lost count). It seems like anytime something goes out of business, in comes a State Farm agency. I have yet to see another insurance company
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Nail Salons
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Massage parlors
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Pay day loan places
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Starbucks
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Banks
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Bubble Tea places (as someone else mentioned these seemed to replace the frozen yogurt and cupcake shops that our town used to have a ton of, I think cupcakes and frozen yogurt were quite trendy and then the hype wore down and bubble tea is the new thing)
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For a few years it seemed our town had a lot of Italian restaurants and sports bars and sushi restaurants. It seemed like every strip mall and shopping center had an Italian place, a bar where you could order wings and watch sports with the volume up as loud as it could go, and a sushi restaurant. And most were not very good.
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Fitness places and niche spas. It used to be the 24 hour fitness, the women’s gym, and the parks and rec department exercise classes. Now our town has 2 places that do spin classes, 2 pilates places, 3 yoga places, and a place that offers ballet barre workouts, and 2 crossfit gyms. And the women’s gym is closed down and the 24 hour fitness is now another fancier gym. And we also have several facial, cryotherapy, sauna, wax, lash & brow, and botox places too. Also, there is a new place that opened next to our Trader Joe’s that is a place where you can get meals tailored to your nutritional needs and it’s based on macros. I guess you can go in there and get meals and also get them delivered to your home as well, I wonder if we’ll be seeing more of those.
The first In N Out burger joint in my state opened today. The lines are insanely long.
When they opened in Denver, they were 14 hours long. One was in the parking lot of a struggling mall and they used the mall’s parking lot to stage sections and tell them “you are the 2 hour parking lot” “you are the 6 hour parking lot.”
You could have driven to the airport, flown to Orange county airport, gone to an In-N-Out, eaten, flown home all within the 14 hour window, and probably within the 6 hours. We now have 4-5 in the area, and while I love In-N-Out, I think I’ve only been twice in the 4 years since they opened. I rarely wait in line for food.
In&Out is OK but I wouldn’t wait for it. It really isn’t THAT great.
100% agree! I don’t think it is any better than a typical burger place. I truly don’t understand the excitement.
And the fries are downright awful.
Also, even as a Christian, I don’t care for companies that proselytize on their products.