I keep thinking about the pizza store that was opened as a front for the mafia but did such good business that they quit doing the mafia thing and just sold pizzas full-time
There’s an Italian restaurant in Denver (Gaetano’s) that was opened in the 40s to give the mob wives something to keep them busy and to launder money. The mob is long gone, but the restaurant is still pretty popular.
It’s good stuff too!
Had an amazing Chinese restaurant near my old place, really excellent food but always completely deserted. They always seemed so surprised that when we called for takeout and whenever we collected it they’d chat about how busy they’d been, and how bus loads of tourists stop by, it just happens to be empty right now… Uhuh. Surrre. I live in this street, I don’t see busses of anyone. But the food was consistently excellent, so they must have actively not advertised because otherwise they’d been super popular.
A maybe-related but maybe-not story: I heard someone talk about walking into an out-of-the-way pizza place. Inside, there were no customers, but there was one employee and there seemed to be a few guys in suits just standing around talking to him. Everyone there was surprised to see anyone walking in, and even more surprised when he ordered a pizza. The pizza took ages to make, like over a half hour, but he did get a pizza; they handed it to him and hustled him out the door without even taking his money. I think they might’ve even locked the door behind him, I don’t remember.
The way the story goes, he took it home and ate it, and it was the absolute best pizza he’d ever had in his life. But every time he tried to go back after that, the place was closed.
I heard a very similar story, except it was one Italian grandma with a bunch of dudes in suits. She proceeded to serve him the single largest, most elaborate, and most delicious Italian dinner he had ever had. Apparently he could see into the kitchen, and she was making everything from scratch. He was there for like two hours, and she just kept bringing more plates out even though he hadn’t actually ordered anything. All because she was so excited to finally have someone to cook for. She even sat with him to chat, and was clearly happy to just have someone except the angry-looking dudes in suits to talk to. IIRC the suits didn’t even take payment before he was ushered out of the door.
He tried to go back like a week later, but the place was totally deserted.
Your story is so familiar, I wonder if maybe I misremembered that one.
Yeah, the one table i saw eating in was a group of young guys in smart suits looking very serious.
I miss the little mob money laundering pizza place that I went to as a kid. Absolutely amazing pizza. Never the same after the feds shut down the drug trafficking ring behind it all and deported the owner.
On the flip side, there’s a local pizza place where I currently live that’s fucking terrible. Some of the worst pizza I’ve ever had. It made me wonder how they could stay in business. Then I found out that name of the business happened to also be the name of the local mafia family.
Local places are always one or the other: either they’re the best thing you’ve ever eaten and you can’t wait to get back there and have it again, or they’re just the worst. I guess that applies to mafia fronts, too.
Sounds like the comic book origin story for Godfather’s Pizza.
The “Water and Donut Store” where they get mad if you ask for donuts, say it’s not the right time of day for donuts (all times of day/night are the wrong time, but there are always three or four stale, lonely donuts in the large glass donut cases) and have a station where you may, for a small fee, fill your water jugs with minimally filtered tap water. 🤨
say it’s not the right time of day for donuts
This feels like it’s taken right out of a video game.
We have a jewelry store in town that is by appointment only. During the day there’s always a high end car parked at the back of the store but you never see anyone in there. When my buddy was getting ready to propose he tried calling to get an appointment and it went straight to voicemail with a message that said private clients only and then beeped. He left a message but never heard back. I’ve never met anyone who has seen anyone go in or come out of that place.
Local Italian hotdog place that rarely open and when it does it for 1 hour only.
Reminds me of a story I once read about a couple being on holiday in Italy. They went in a local pizzeria and were the only ones in there, they got pretty shady looks from everyone, but still ordered a pizza. It was the best pizza they ever had. Also, for the whole time they were there, no customer came there and it was silent.
I’m interested in the by appointment only hot dog place. They are probably the greatest hotdogs ever.
No, that’s just a high end jeweler
I mean that’s a kind of money laundering all in itself tho
My thought too. Probably by referral only or something.
I found a money laundering deli
It’s amazing, they love having customers as it improves their cover so everything is dirt cheap and really high quality.
Sometimes people come in and the guy behind the register politely shuffles us out with an armful of free cold cuts and a wink
None of you will ever hear about this place from my lips
You think anyone does crime to support their dream of being a shop keeper with good deals?
We need to cook JackbyDev
Back in the early 2000s, when malls were still frequented, there was a tea shop down a dark wing that was rarely visited. I was on a tea bender and visited often, it was always empty. The man who ran the shop was very friendly. He was so friendly that he never failed to overstuff the tea I bought, give me a free hot tea, my choice, even the very expensive tea, on the spot, and heavily discount the tea I did pay for. I recommended him to friends and family, who reported the same experience. Empty shop, free and discounted tea, very friendly.
After a while, he opened up a little. He was from Iran. He had to leave very quickly, but he missed his home country. When asked why he left, he would dodge the question. People I sent to visit also reported his question dodging. He hesitated to say much about Iran beyond its ancient (and very cool) history.
I do not think he was laundering money, but he wasn’t there to make money. My guess is that he was whisked away by the US Government/CIA and given a new home in a quiet town where he could finally relax and just sell tea.
A few times, his older son was in the shop and was always visibly frustrated or bored, and he expressed a strong desire to “go home” back to Iran. The tea shop man tried to hide the seriousness in his tone when asking his son to be quiet. On occasion, his wife was there. She was friendly enough when speaking to you but always had a wary look on her face when you walked into the shop, looking right at your face for the first few seconds. I know that look personally. She was looking for danger in a face.
Even after the mall’s soul died and the anchor stores left, the little friendly tea shop in the dark, empty wing stayed.
That family was not there to make money selling tea. Very, very good tea, might I add. Such a friendly man. I hope they found peace.
I hope they found peace.
Well yes, except obviously not now that you’ve told on them and assasins find them.
But up to this point, prolly, yeah.
To be fair, he might not have been hiding from anyone specifically, it could’ve just been they had escaped from a war zone and didn’t want to talk about it.
Yeah, that’s probably more likely.
That’s lovely. I’m my experience, tea people are special people.
until deprived of tea.
then they’re special monsters.
you mean the 12 car washes that all sprung up at the same exact time all within 5 miles of each other?
the same ones that have practically zero cars driving through them because they opened at the height of 2020 where nobody was driving anymore?
the same ones that somehow weathered a bust market for carwashes for 3 years?
the same ones that are owned by two guys with the same last name that look suspiciously like retired mafia?
you mean those places?
nah, they’re just a couple brothers that were really successful before the pandemic.
Carwashes are a decent choice of laundering business, but are also a business with remarkably low overhead. They are a popular choice of business for someone who wants to buy land and sit on it in a place they believe will become developed so they can sell it later. There is a large initial outlay for building the structure, but the actual machines and installation can cost less than buying a car. Upkeep is surprisingly simple and costs less than you probably think. The soaps and chemicals are dirt cheap and sold in 30-55gal quantities that last a month or more depending on traffic. The only real overhead if you aren’t getting customers is your mortgage and payroll, and you’d be paying a mortgage even if you just bought the land and did nothing with it. Not to mention touchless carwashes only require staff when there is a problem and any touch carwash can be run by a single person.
I know of a guy that installed a drive through car wash in his driveway. Nobody goes there but it’s apparently really loud when it runs and his son ran through it one time. He got pretty banged up.
sounds like its broken badly. his walter bills must be loco, eh?
There’s a psychic/tarot reader on the highway near me that’s been around as long as I can remember, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car parked out front.
It’s pretty clever if it is a money laundering front actually because a “business” like that doesn’t really do anything that generates much paperwork and can claim it charged imaginary customers any amount it wants without having to justify it.
There is a super famous, incredibly mediocre destination BBQ restaurant in Central Texas that is famous for an all-you-can-eat family-style meal. For decades, they only accepted cash. Way, way longer than made sense. Like into the 2020s I think.
Their main menu item was all-you-can eat (hard to quantify number of sales), only members of the family that ran the place were allowed to count the take and the receipts at the end of each shift, and they only took cash.
I fully believe they were either laundering money or evading taxes by under-reporting. But then they opened a few satellite branches, including one at the airport, and started having to be more careful as they expanded.
There was a place here that only took cash despite being delivery and every other place here taking cards. They’ve started taking cards. They didn’t take cards because profit margins are low and card fees are high. I asked them because I was curious.
They might be the mafia though. It is NJ.
We have a local chain of antique shops, very high-end
Never see anyone come or go
We’re lousy with antique shops here, but there is this one that is only open two days a week, for a few hours. They just sell thrift store quality junk and discounted (new) disposable kitchenware. They start cleaning 30 minutes before “closing time” and don’t let you in the store.
There is a possibility that all of their real business is online and they just keep the storefront open with the crap stuff so they can claim to be a brick and mortar store.
Unless they’re a distributor or operating under a different name online I can’t seem to find anything
Their 3 separate ornate stores in a town with a population less than 20k do not direct anyone online
Sometimes it’s just a passion project by crazy people. My town has a shack on a busy non-walkable intersection without even parking spaces that sells only angel figurines. Let me be clear, this isn’t general angel knickknacks, this isn’t specific saints, it’s angel figurines ONLY. You will find no bless this house signs. No Christmas tree toppers or ornaments. Not a single holiday decoration, religious or otherwise. You won’t even find Jesus on the cross.
Angel. Figurines. Only. I always assumed it was a front for something until my mom helped with some taxes for them. No, it’s just one crazy couple who are obsessed with the sanctity of the angel figurine. They feel very strongly about it and asking if they do garden angels now that spring’s coming up and you’d love to patronage them is apparently offensive enough for them to take their taxes elsewhere lol.
There’s a Mexican restaurant which I always wanted to try. Walked in and ordered a carne asada plate- the fucking thing was almost 30 bucks. It took like 20 minutes and was the consistency of reconstituted shoe leather and tasted like a jarred fart.
There is never a soul eating in there and yet it remains open.
SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER
Oof, if you’re going to run a money laundering business at least either provide a good product or a cheap price.
They don’t want to do that because the restaurant could potentially become popular and then they’d have to actually function as a restaurant.
Then you have more revenue so it’s easier to launder large cash payments through it.
‘Smartphone repair shop’ near where I live. Has always light on (24/7 confirmed), but nobody inside. At times an ad flag (those 2mt tall with the shop name on it) comes out and is near the entrance.
One time I managed to catch a guy behind the counter and entered for asking if they had some spare parts (I think it was a battery) and he looked fucking disgusted just because I dared to enter. Useless to say, they did not have any spare parts.
As of today (4 or 5 months), not a single client entered.
Also, that shop that sells completely random stuff (chandeliers, dolls, weird statues, horrible carpets and so much more junk), never seen it open but have been there for like at least 30 years.
Also, that shop that sells completely random stuff (chandeliers, dolls, weird stautes statues, horrible carpets and so much more junk), never seen it open but have been there for like at least 30 years.
Oh yeah, we also have this in my city, in quite a prime spot of the old town. However since it’s such an old shop, I’m not sure if it just belongs to a family that owns (not rents) that space since generations (and isn’t really sure what to do with it except for “selling” that stuff).
Also, that shop that sells completely random stuff (chandeliers, dolls, weird statues, horrible carpets and so much more junk), never seen it open but have been there for like at least 30 years.
We had one of those. It turns out it was owned by a rental agent, and he just used it to store the random stuff he’d use to furnish appartments with to rent out.
There is a trading card shop here - in a village of 2500.
How?
I knew a local trading card shop that was basically daycare for a high functioning autistic nepo baby
His rich parents 1) wanted to get his collection out of the house, 2) wanted HIM out of the house for at least part of the day, and 3) Figured the business losses as the cost of ‘daycare’, so the store never made money but it served a purpose
Used to clean up on locals there, you’d be surprised how much money you can make at card tournaments
Idk if 10% of the town patronizes it regularly and there’s no other shops around that’s like 250 customers coming in year round, let’s say each spends an average of 150 in a year that’s what … 37 grand? Plus whatever online retail they can do.
If it’s just like one dude that runs it and works there and pays themselves I could see it being viable.
Edit: probably would be a good way to launder some drug money though and I’ve found a lot of weed smokers in the mix of my nerd shops I frequent.
we have what seems like about 15 mattress stores along one stretch of road, and we also have a store that sells nothing but bar stools. I’ve often thought that about those places…
My town has a population of about 2,000 people. There are five dedicated car washes within a 10-mile radius of my house, with two more under construction.
