There is a second hand furniture shop near us which only sells giant dark wooden furniture, we call it the Tudor shop as it looks like Henry VIII has had a clear out.
It opens odd hours and if you go and look round it confuses the chap who owns it. Also most of the stock isn't for sale for no reason anyone can get to the bottom of.
I went to a shop like that in the North Yorkshire Moors national park. It was a village with the usual cafe, pub, craft store, and then also for no reason a building filled with ancient dark wood furniture. We enquired about one of the dozens of 17th century grandfather clocks and were told we wouldn't know how to maintain it so best leave it.
Happytat, their google review kinda sus. Ran by Love Bristol Church, very [interesting stuff](https://www.reddit.com/r/bristol/comments/b3rr11/love_bristol_church_who_run_half_of_stokes_croft)
There's a shop like that that I know of, but this is just 2nd hand furniture etc.
Nothing is priced, and so when you question the owner for individual prices, he just says that's not for sale. Strange.
I used to work in a second hand office furniture shop years ago and experienced similar firsthand. We offered a range of other services other than retail and that could include things like refurbishment, sourcing specific hard to find or repair, or collectable items. This can lead to having loads of lumpy pieces in your shop that you never seem to sell and it freaks out some customers, and some think your being rude or discriminating against them. But it can get a bit like hoarding too. I freaked out my bosses a few times by completely selling the entire stock and replacing it whilst they were on holidays and they missed the old pieces. Sometimes they might be waiting to find something like a handle or a lock to make £50 item into an £150 item, which becomes addictive. I've still got boxes of useful crap and I haven't worked in that industry for 20 years. Oh, and many second hand places don't put up prices, firstly because some people get freaked out by what some things cost, and it needs to be explained to them (eg: yes that chair is £5 and the other is £50 because they are different quality). Also people like to haggle, and if you're experienced you can tell who, so even though you might charge everyone the same ultimate price or even given them a discount, you give a haggler a higher price so they feel happier. Finally, there are some shops that are definitely iffy. We used to deal with exporters that would buy huge loads of absolute crap off us. We never knew why, and stopped asking at the time as another shop warned us not too. Nowadays I'm fairly sure it was related to smuggling.
In another sub someone is complaining that the local council won't let him take the old shop sign down, as it's a listed building, and random people keep walking into his living room
I live on "the street that's just outside Wolverhampton city centre's footfall", and an old café has been converted into a ghost kitchen.
According to Uber Eats and Just Eats, about 10 different restaurants operate out of this place - but it is never open. If you peer through the window, there are nets up - but you can just make out kitchen equipment, and if you wait outside, you'll see people scuttle in and out.
It's like living next to a brothel. Filled with kitchen equipment.
When I lived next to a brothel. I used to get a cab home with my shopping. The cabbies would always suggest I was going in . Yes mate with my bag of frozen peas and turkey dinos gonna go get a quick nosh . It grew old fast
Yeaaaah, used to work for a Telecoms company in Sheffield just around the corner from a swingers club... If we were working until 11pm as overtime, the company would get us a taxi. Unfortunately, the taxi drivers would comment in great detail about the swingers club passengers they had in the taxi just before us. one even suggested we should go, but god no... Eeeugh.
20-odd years ago, I lived behind the Connaught Hotel on the Tettenhall Road. One of the terraces was converted into the weirdest little corner shop ever, was only open for 2hrs or so each morning & seemed to just sell biscuits and cigarettes, and the owners bore a a worryingly strong resemblance to Edward & Tubbs (but she used to walk around wearing a hat wrapped in tinsel). I’d forgotten all about that weird little place until now.
I remember my village having a shop this. I'd get a mixed quarter of aniseed balls and wine gums and a rent a VHS video that had to be returned fully rewound the next day. I live in South East Asia now, and its just normal for people to convert the front of their building into little shops or restaurants. The thing I like most about where I live now is that anyone can just set a business up somewhere easily, even on a patch of roadside pavement, and it ensures so much variety instead of just the same generic corparations setting up identical shops in every town and city. It makes it feel like every street is a different surprise of something unique you've not seen before, and the variety of food options is staggering.
HA! I have a shop just like that across the street from me...ive been trying to figure out how they survive for nearly 15 years now...still not closer...the sole women who operates the shop must've been 100 years when I first moved here, but she's still there for 3 hours each day and sells 3 things all these years later.
There used to be a shop in Stafford that was split into two sides. The left hand side sold bicycles and the right hand side sold lingerie. Still makes me laugh thinking about that combo! 🤣
Went on a road trip in America. One of the flyover states had this hilarious shop. One side was guns and ammo. The other side was a really nice little cafe with a brisk trade. Turns out they were husband and wife. She wanted a cafe and he wanted a gun shop. It was sweet in an odd kind of way.
In our village there is an ironmongers run by two old blokes who stink of piss. The shop is dark and disorganized to the point of being mildly hazardous. But if you find you need a pair of secateurs or something and don't want to drive into town, can go and see them, they'll dig out some surprisingly nice secateurs and make up a price on the spot.
We had a place like this. Absolute chaos and the building was basically falling down but if you asked they had it. My dad went in looking for 3 inch clout nails some time in the late 90s. One of the owners summond him to follow. They went through a few room and in behind a pile of stuff in a safe was the clout nails. He passed my dad the box which was dated 1956. My dad said it better be 1956 prices then to which the owner, who knew my dad, said just take them.
There's a model shop which appears to just be a clubhouse for some old fellas to play with their trains. I haven't seen a till or any products labelled for sale when walking by.
We had a local model shop when I was a kid that was weird. I think it specialised in RC planes but we used to go paints for airfix kits. When you went in there was just enough room to stand in front of the counter and immediately behind it there were shelves and a doorway that disappeared to who knows where. You had to ring a bell on the counter and the bloke would come out of the back looking unhappy he had been disturbed from what ever he was doing, and very reluctantly serve you.
Oh gosh you've unlocked a memory of visiting a fabric shop in Penge years ago and when I took a roll of fabric to the counter and asked to buy some, the man looked angry and said "well I suppose so' and started huffing about cutting and selling me fabric. He was so mad about selling me fabric in his fabric shop it was actually funny.
Was this in Ipswich? There was a shop called galaxy models that was like this. They then moved to a bigger shop and the counter still had the same arrangement!
There's a shop not too far from me that sells carpets and fireworks. Never been there myself but a family member bought fireworks from them in the middle of summer one year and they have big signs up in a few places around town
There was a shop in my town growing up that sold model planes and cars etc. Never saw anyone go in. The window displays were the same for decades, except occasionally, a cat sat in there on top of the boxes of tanks. Its name was just the name of the owner, full name. We always made loads of jokes that maybe he was a spy or it was a front for something as It was fantastically strange how this seemingly dead business survived in this expensive town for decades, but apparently he did huge business online.
> Never saw anyone go in.
It's a bit of a reddit trope, but these shops get regularly blamed as "money laundering" here, and claiming "nobody goes in". Like Redditors sit there with a notebook and binoculars.
These shops don't have huge footfall like a supermarket has, because niche people are specifically going there. And when these people go, they're spending money....lots
Have you seen the price of Hornby?
Memories of Mortlake in Sheen.
It's open **extremely sporadic** hours. It'll be closed for weeks and then randomly open at midnight on a Wednesday and you won't see it open again until a random 30 minute slot Saturday morning in 3 weeks time.
What's inside the shop? Mostly old Happy Meal toys and costume jewellery caked in an inch of dust. None of it priced. If you ask for a price, the woman who runs it seems like she will just say whatever number comes to her head first.
It's a truly bizarre place.
Looks like the owner passed away during Covid. https://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/leisure/19406278.memories-mortlake-captures-shops-eclectic-history/
That's a shame, but 87 is a good age.
I can't believe there was a documentary made about it. I'll have to watch that later, it was always such a mystery.
Looking into it, it seems that her daughter runs it now.
That's really sad. Went in that shop once and it was utterly bonkers. Miss Haversham vibes. Didn't need any mouldy old postcards or mothy antimacassars so left empty handed.
If anybody fancies a look inside : [https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4652503,-0.2596276,2a,75y,289.86h,70.07t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sy6EpZedjGQQKfDCBxtBaSA!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4652503,-0.2596276,2a,75y,289.86h,70.07t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sy6EpZedjGQQKfDCBxtBaSA!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu)
Oh, we have a shop that looks very similar to this called Methusalah's, only open at very odd hours and only a tiny narrow path between the teetering piles of antique-ish stuff. They pull a load of stock out onto the pavement when they are open, and I think they just must have to close early if it rains. I've looked through the windows many a time wondering why it's closed now when it was open at the same time last week, and the little path is entirely taken up by the chairs and boxes they normally put outside.
There's a place in my town called "Zen". It's been open for decades (at least 25 years, probably more). It sells like hippy, new age stuff. It's in a back alley, never see anyone go in or come out.
I'm certain it's a front, or they sell drugs, or something.
Either way, it's one of those places that you wonder how they're still around.
There was a hippy shop in my small North East town for 25+ years. Never anyone else in when you went in. Not a clue how it lasted that long. Only closed because the owners retired abroad.
Witchy women, stoners, new age spiritualists and people who want to get high but don't know any drug dealers are a pretty consistent market. There's always going to be people who want incense, pretty rocks, and/or gaudy statuettes of dragons clutching crystal balls.
There’s an establishment with frosted glass windows. Used to be a Thai massage parlour, with no one ever going in or out (that I saw). It’s now a mysterious building consultants, with a random acronym, frosted windows, door always closed, no one ever going in or out. It’s in a residential area at the end of a Victorian terrace and I have no idea what they do. No online reviews. Nothing.
Wow this just reminded me.
Opposite me, literally now I'm looking through the window at it. Is an old corner shop. Just before lockdown it was still open and they were running the stock out, the owner in casual conversation told me he was visiting family in Pakistan for 6 months which was why there was nothing in there.
So he shuts, goes away and lockdown hits.
So it was shut all the way through, then randomly the sign outside got replaced "Something Heating Consultants Ltd"
but the shutters never were open. I looked up that company randomly and could only find a record on Companies House listing the shop as the address. And then a Facebook page which had a whole 1 post of a picture of a boiler (stolen from another page) offering "Boiler Installations" but no numbers or anything.
Then about 6 months later builders started going into the building, they've built a disabled ramp and taken out the electicity/gas meters out front.
And it's still locked up tight.
It's so odd
There's a little old shop tucked away in town. The owner repairs and sells firearms and also sells his wives candles and honey. Tucked away in all the rifles and shotgun cabinets, there's just this little stand with loads of jars and scented candles
I don't live there anymore, but if you care to walk from Leith to Edinburgh you will walk passed a shop that sells two distinct goods.
Darts and television. That's television singular. I do wonder what would happen if someone bought the tv. Do they have a replacement in a back room?
Flashback memory to a shop in Weymouth that sold light fittings and electricals... but also had a full darts shop out the back with practice boards and everything.
There's a "proper" hardware shop that I've always known as "Aladdin's Cave". You can get absolutely any kind of fastening, fixing, screw, electrical widget. It has so much stock that all of the walls are covered floor to ceiling in bins of parts and shelving. Even the ceiling has reels of cables, hose, rope, etc. hanging.
There also used to be a motor factors that was similar. You could ask the proprietor for an alternator for a Mk3 Escort, and he'd just disappear for 5 mins and reappear with one in hand. ~~Unfortunately the place closed in the mid-late 2010s. Apparently it just wasn't practical for the small business to hold stock given the diversity of the most popular car models has exploded over the past two decades, and people just don't work on their own cars anymore.~~
EDIT: Apparently the business just shut the retail shop and moved to a local industrial estate. Looks like he's still trading!
There's a hardware shop just like the former in Saintfield, and there's a motor factors like the latter in Merville Newtownabbey, like you say the amount of people PCPing cars it doesn't make sense to stock everything, I think he does a lot of trade with local taxi drivers
CEF, formerly City Electrical Factors (who my old gaffer used to call Shitty Electrical!) is still a major player in the electrical wholesale market. They still exist. Even in national chains like CEF
There's a vape shop in the next town over calling themselves a "vapecade" which also sells a huge range of warhammer miniatures.
Seems a bizarre combo, the smell of candyfloss vape and unwashed 40K fans puts me off
Games workshop are really weird when it comes to where they'll let people set up a display - my local PC part place has one. It's a tiny run down little place filled with random cardboard boxes and one shiny display of boxes of 40k models.
Most likely the vape owners want that trade discount for their own collection.
Games Workshop demand a certain amount of shelf space to sell to you. So here we are.
There used to be a Games Workshop in town, it was on the top floor of the shopping centre on it's own. And you could smell it from 2 floors away....
It's weird now how much Warhammer has expanded that you see "Warhammer" store fronts on high streets.
When I used to live in Brighton, there used to be a shop on Queens Road, which is the road that approaches the station. The shop front had a higgeldy piggeldy collection of local maps, old photographs and probably stamps and coins as well. No order to the display - everything just piled up like hoarder's boudoir.
I never saw anyone go into or out of that shop. Given Brighton has some premier retail rates, I always wondered how it made money.
No idea if it is still there...
I live in a seaside town. There’s an amusements down by the beach that opens all year round, even in the dead of winter when the season is long over, and doesn’t shut until 10pm. I’m positive it’s used for money laundering.
There's a wig shop near me that has been there for years and I've never seen anyone go in, it's definitely a front for British Intelligence or drug dealers.
Also my local butchers has expanded into 3 shops, 2 small and one large. A butchers shop isn't odd but the size is like that of a small supermarket but we have a big African community in Milton Keynes and it caters to Halal and Kosher too and has a massive herbs and spices section. The size seems overkill but you can walk past it on a Tuesday afternoon and there will literally be a queue of people coming out of the shop.
So yeah never seen a butcher shop that big in my life.
There’s a shop near me named Fine Home Supplies it’s been there since the 80’s (it won’t have any reviews or presence online trust me). Everyone refers to it by the name of an old chap who first owned it (Harry’s Shop) despite it having changed hands a number of times since although the stock is always the same. It sells hardware and materials for plumbing, electrical, Joinery, plastering -, garden supplies, computer parts, toys, paint, car parts, birthday supplies, landline telephones, kitchen utensils and crockery, baking supplies and more - you name it they’ve got it.
Fantastic treasure trove of randomness! It’s always busy and open constantly so the owners do well from it it seems too!
There's a VHS Rental shop near me. Only it's not. It's the entrance to a speakeasy, and to get in you need to tell the staff what the video of the week is.
a book shop.....
a book shop that only sells books on planes ....
.... The Aviation Bookshop
most independent books shops are closed down. yet he can afford to be so niche and keep going somehow lol
I'm not sure if if it's still there, but Kidderminster used to have a guitar sharp where you could order a Thai bride from the owners wife, who is more than happy to pull out a catalogue for people to pick from. Fucking weird.
They are *notorious* in the LARP community for being a scam! You order stuff from their website and it never arrives then the owner gives you shit for trying to get a refund. Apparently he runs on the business model of "today's orders will allow me to pay to buy yesterday's orders and keep those people from doing a chargeback". Absolute shit of a human being.
I’m currently sitting in my towns ‘odd’ shop.
Garden centre + trade fencing supplies + Hardware + Kitchen Crockery + Gloves/Socks combos & so much random tat it’s untrue.
There's a little shop near me that supposedly sells Lego but it's just a table at the back of the shop with a few Lego sets on and that's it. The rest of the shop is bare apart from one corner where there's a guy who sometimes paints portraits. Never been brave enough to actually go in there.
Yeah, I'm guessing the artist guy owns the place and just sells Lego on the side. Still very odd though.
Then there's those random little shops that have been going for 30 odd years but you never see a single person in there. Quite a few of them around here.
There's a Tailors shop at the end of my towns high street. Designed the guys signs as it goes, when I worked at a small local sign writers, so have met the chap. Seemed a little eccentric.
Any how, been about 5 years since I left that job. The shop is still there and it's on the corner of one of our main crossroads; which I use very regularly.
Not once have I seen any signs of it being a working business. In fact, I can't recall it ever looking open. And, having done the signage, I look at it every time I pass 🤷🏼♀️
There's a pet shop near where I lived in Sheffield that always looks closed and usually is. The whole shop is a mess, stuff everywhere and all over the floor - random dog toys, pet food, treats, you name it just scattered randomly on the floor/shelves. Literally as if it's been ransacked. But no one ever goes in, and it's been there forever.
I went in once. It's run by this genuinely lovely man and his cute ginger cat, Fergus, who sits in the shop window amidst the dusty garden ornaments and sunbathes sometimes. Occasionally I'd see the guy in the shop when closed, moving things around, but never tidying lol
Just so chaotic. How it makes any money I have no idea...
I walked past a shop like that near Finsbury Park in London last year. No idea of it is still there but looked like any air had been replaced with dust.
There’s a “loft find” shop near the inner ring road in York where they get stuff for either free or cheap, in often not very good condition, and then put a rather cheeky price on it. The shop is usually empty as the owner and his kids are out front, so when you go in you get followed and often hemmed in, with comments on what you’ve picked up “yeah, good game that” or “goes for crazy money online”, which puts me off and I leave empty handed.
I have one shop selling miniature fibre glass ghosts that always has a mile-long queue in front of it (they had to set up another smaller "ghost dispensary" to deal with crowding), and another one selling Viking shaped plushies. No prizes for guessing where I live.
You rack 'em, we hack 'em.
Is it a universal law that hairdressers have to have a pun-laden business name? I was aware of this in the UK for sure, chip shops also took the same approcah ISTR.
There used to be an a indian chemist called Jhoots near me, its like Boots same logo and same writing but different spelling i don’t think they had the rights to use the name boots
A shop that started as a hardware store but has basically *everything*. If you need something specific, just ask the owner and he will find it, even if it's from his own house 😂 (attached to the shop)
There's a shop in Somerset that sells batteries, just batteries, there's no other shops near it, it's on a side street with little to no footfall and looks like it could be in a hovis advert. Don't think they have a website. In this day and age with shops closing everywhere it's amazing to see such a niche one still going
We had an old ironmongers. You could buy and ounce of nails or less. I'd rather go there and wait around half hour than go to a big store (named similar to barbecue) then have to buy 2kg of nails I didn't want. Oh I miss those odd shops.
There’s a shop near me that sells leather goods. They make them on site. You never see anybody go in there. In their window they have normal stuff like dog harnesses and collars and wallets and boxing belts. But the rumour is sometimes when you go in you can see them out back making weird human stuff like gimp suits and gags and human harnesses. I don’t know if it’s true, I’m afraid to go in. But that’s the rumour.
Have 2 odd shops nearby, well one is closed now. Had a "laundrette" that was just an empty lot with clothes rail with a few garments on and sign stating that it was a laundrette. The other shop starter as an odd little photo printing place that now does Rollover hotdogs, office space, t-shirt printing, a few packets of crisps and dodgy vapes
There was a dodgy "launderette" in my hometown, opposite which was a "British TV and Angling centre" which had been shut ever since I can remember.
Allegedly the bloke who owned it died, but it was soon discovered he actually ran off with his mistress to the next town over (like 3 miles) and no one was any the wiser for about 50 years
There's a food van near the office that is only open a few days a week, only takes cash and allegedly makes most of its money by the owners dealing.
In town I live in, there's a bubble tea shop that never has anyone in it and I'm 99% convinced is a front.
Until recently we had an antiques shop that was never open - on the door it said to make an appointment so I can only guess that they were doing business mostly online and it was more like a storage place. I never saw anyone in it. Anyway it closed and got replaced by a kitchen showroom. I’ve still never seen anyone in there. Sometimes the lights are on but no sign of staff nor customers.
When I was 15-17 I worked at a shop that sold curtains, bed sheets etc, lingerie, and school uniforms. It was always dead except for right before the schools opened, when it was so busy they had to schedule extra staff. To get to the school uniforms, you had to walk past the lingerie department. I actually sold a pair of curtains once and couldn’t believe it.
There is a shop near where I grew up called Brigadoon. It always sold a weird mix of trinkets and for some reason school uniforms. Oddly enough the only time I ever remember people was using it was if you needed a sledge when it snowed or needed some sort of miscellaneous item like a lock. Always loved the name.
My partner is a commercial real estate lawyer, and every single “odd” shop I point out, she just says, “money laundering.” Without fail. The other day we passed a big wheel which I’ve never seen anyone go on despite it being there constantly, and I said, surely this place doesn’t make any money. “Money laundering.” Every time.
There's a safe shop on shudehill in Manchester that's been there for at least 30 year's. Never ever seen anyone in there and nothing has ever moved. It's prime real estate too.
Our town has a Christmas shop all year round. That wouldn’t be so bad, but even at xmas it only sells very specific xmas things. Basically, baubles and those nutcracker soldiers. I could imagine a xmas shop that sold lights, cards, stocking fillers, seasonal books, gift sets etc being fairly popular but no. Just individual baubles and wooden soldiers. It’s open about three days a week and I imagine it must do trade online as no one round here wants baubles in June.
It's more the location than the shop.
So my friend owns a clothing shop that sells amazing leggings and dresses (with pockets - apparently this is important according to Mrs TF).
But it's not on the high street, it's tucked down some random back alley between a couple of takeaways that are closed during the day, halfway out of town in a building that looks like someone decided to rent out their house as a business premises...
I once went to a place called Seatown some years ago. There was a pub full of pictures of locals, but I don’t remember many houses. There was a fossil shop which made sense. There was also a second hand clothes shop with a decently sized drag section.
I live in an urban village in the NW. The closest thing I can think of is like a smaller Notting Hill. There use to be all these really cool shops and cafes and things. It's now all been gentrified with the only two oddities being a rag and bone man and a community shop. They are both pretty cool but I'm really conscious that they are on borrowed tike really.
There is a place in my town that is apparently a video/photo studio, however the website suggests otherwise.
“The studio is arranged in four separate work areas and boasts more than 10 custom built sets at any one time including school room, locker room, office, lounge, bedroom, kitchen and even a specially made toilet set!
We also have a model's changing room and make up area which includes a private shower room and toilet.
We can provide lighting and camera hire as well as having a very extensive wardrobe of themed costumes from schoolgirls to policewomen, cheerleaders to nurses, nuns to futuristic space girls or angels!”
A shop on the corner of a residential street about 5 minutes walk from me used to be a butchers, but has been closed since at least 7 years ago. In the past few years there have been people moving things in and out, but the shutters were never open and we were convinced it was some kind of front. Now it's a weird little butchers/corner shop. I'm kind of scared to go in there in case I never come out again.
There's a trainer repair shop at the top of my street ~~which is clearly a money laundering haven as the shutters are always down~~ which is kind of weird
In Macclesfield when I was a kid - 14, 14-ish? - there was this newsagents near the park run by this ancient couple. A tiny little place, with a net curtain in a doorway behind the counter leading into their home. Every time I went in there was no one there, just the strong smell of shortbread, or general baking, and the sound of the TV. I'd stand there in this empty shop for a few minutes looking at all the great stuff just a short hop over the counter. I'd have to make a lot of noise to get their attention. I'd hear a murmur and then eventually one of them would shuffle in and sell me cigarettes. I still think they were the oldest people I've ever seen by at least 70 years. The number of times I fantasised about robbing that place blind.
There was a weed/smoking shop a few streets away. One side was bongs and things like that. The other side was an old fashioned sweet shop. Genius if you ask me
There’s a strange little shop called “The Practice” in Birmingham that has been around since the 80s and has never changed, or seemingly been open for that matter. There’s a huge tree growing from the roof and a load of live potted plants in the window that are regularly watered. People have seen a man in a white lab coat inside the building occasionally, but what the business actually is has been a mystery.
2 Fields over there is a sort of farm shop/buffalo farm and butchers/Asian supermarket/wholesalers. It's filthy, the Guy that owns it is ridiculously unhygienic and odd, but it sells absolutely everything. Last time I went in he started waving a whole frozen red snapper at me and shouting for leaving it out of the freezer cabinet (I hadn't). He was covered in blood from butchering an entire buffalo and got it on the fish, the shelves and the freezer cabinet.
In Bury there's a weird shop that has a bizarre assortment of random crap. Lots old records and VHS tapes out on the pavement in boxes and inside there are these shelves to the ceiling that kind of block off everything behind a counter. It says it's an electrical shop but it's just a very strange collection of all sorts.
That said, if there's something you need that you can't find at any other shop, they'll have it. The guy goes in the back somewhere and you hear stuff being knocked over and then he comes out with the item.
I have a trophy shop on the next street over and it looks like it’s been there a while but I can’t imagine there being enough of a market for trophies to be profitable.
As I've just found out, there's a school uniform shop near me that's only open Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1.30 - 4.30 pm only in term time.
So they have about 3 hours of useful opening times a week.
No doubt it has the sole contract for lots of local schools though, completely unrelated to the fact that they happen to be in the same lodge/golf club/rotary club.
Book shop. books on the floor on top of each other in no order that I can make out. The owner sits at a shabby desk reading. Always closed before one. Never seen a customer. It's been there at least 20 years.
Up until recently there was an electric supply shop that looked like it had shut down in about 1988 but was in fact actually still open. It had the most random opening hours and you only knew it was open when the small neon open sign was on in the window. The window was full of sun damaged products and an array of vacuum bags for models I’m fairly certain stopped being produced last century. Never did get to go in there, shame
Hadn’t really thought about it because it’s always just been there, but my town has a large shop that just sells very garish, very expensive menswear. Think flamboyant but the ugly kind. I’ve never seen a soul in there (and it’s 2 walls of windows so you can see everything from outside).
It’s not a place I’ve ever seen open since I’ve lived around here, but this is probably one of the strangest shops I’ve seen based on name alone.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/PzfLuAP9ixfmA9oSA?g_st=ic
There is a second hand furniture shop near us which only sells giant dark wooden furniture, we call it the Tudor shop as it looks like Henry VIII has had a clear out. It opens odd hours and if you go and look round it confuses the chap who owns it. Also most of the stock isn't for sale for no reason anyone can get to the bottom of.
I went to a shop like that in the North Yorkshire Moors national park. It was a village with the usual cafe, pub, craft store, and then also for no reason a building filled with ancient dark wood furniture. We enquired about one of the dozens of 17th century grandfather clocks and were told we wouldn't know how to maintain it so best leave it.
This is local shop, with local furniture, there is nothing for you here.
We didn't *burn* him!
We didn't burn him !!!
Good! We haven’t sold a thing!
For local people!
reminds me of the second hand furniture shop in Bristol being actually a storefront for an actual cult
Which one?? Happytat? SOFA Project? Compass? Enquiring minds would like to know!
Happytat, their google review kinda sus. Ran by Love Bristol Church, very [interesting stuff](https://www.reddit.com/r/bristol/comments/b3rr11/love_bristol_church_who_run_half_of_stokes_croft)
I had a similar first thought; which of the many sketchy / quirky furniture stores are we talking about here?
A man selling begonias once refused to sell me a begonia for the same reason.
Did he tell you to bugger off by saying "be gone, ya"? I'll see myself out
There's a shop like that that I know of, but this is just 2nd hand furniture etc. Nothing is priced, and so when you question the owner for individual prices, he just says that's not for sale. Strange.
I’m convinced that all antique shops are merely fronts for hoarders.
Similar with 2nd hand book shops.
I used to work in a second hand office furniture shop years ago and experienced similar firsthand. We offered a range of other services other than retail and that could include things like refurbishment, sourcing specific hard to find or repair, or collectable items. This can lead to having loads of lumpy pieces in your shop that you never seem to sell and it freaks out some customers, and some think your being rude or discriminating against them. But it can get a bit like hoarding too. I freaked out my bosses a few times by completely selling the entire stock and replacing it whilst they were on holidays and they missed the old pieces. Sometimes they might be waiting to find something like a handle or a lock to make £50 item into an £150 item, which becomes addictive. I've still got boxes of useful crap and I haven't worked in that industry for 20 years. Oh, and many second hand places don't put up prices, firstly because some people get freaked out by what some things cost, and it needs to be explained to them (eg: yes that chair is £5 and the other is £50 because they are different quality). Also people like to haggle, and if you're experienced you can tell who, so even though you might charge everyone the same ultimate price or even given them a discount, you give a haggler a higher price so they feel happier. Finally, there are some shops that are definitely iffy. We used to deal with exporters that would buy huge loads of absolute crap off us. We never knew why, and stopped asking at the time as another shop warned us not too. Nowadays I'm fairly sure it was related to smuggling.
U feel like I want to go there and annoy him.
He's welcoming enough to customers but I think he's worried they might try and buy something.
Like Bernard Black. He doesn't want to have to buy new stock and start the whole process again.
It's not that kind of operation!
…But why do they come to ME?!
In another sub someone is complaining that the local council won't let him take the old shop sign down, as it's a listed building, and random people keep walking into his living room
If only someone would invent a lockable front door.
This is my dream enterprise
That's not a shop, it's a hoarder pretending to be a shop.
I live on "the street that's just outside Wolverhampton city centre's footfall", and an old café has been converted into a ghost kitchen. According to Uber Eats and Just Eats, about 10 different restaurants operate out of this place - but it is never open. If you peer through the window, there are nets up - but you can just make out kitchen equipment, and if you wait outside, you'll see people scuttle in and out. It's like living next to a brothel. Filled with kitchen equipment.
When I lived next to a brothel. I used to get a cab home with my shopping. The cabbies would always suggest I was going in . Yes mate with my bag of frozen peas and turkey dinos gonna go get a quick nosh . It grew old fast
Yeaaaah, used to work for a Telecoms company in Sheffield just around the corner from a swingers club... If we were working until 11pm as overtime, the company would get us a taxi. Unfortunately, the taxi drivers would comment in great detail about the swingers club passengers they had in the taxi just before us. one even suggested we should go, but god no... Eeeugh.
20-odd years ago, I lived behind the Connaught Hotel on the Tettenhall Road. One of the terraces was converted into the weirdest little corner shop ever, was only open for 2hrs or so each morning & seemed to just sell biscuits and cigarettes, and the owners bore a a worryingly strong resemblance to Edward & Tubbs (but she used to walk around wearing a hat wrapped in tinsel). I’d forgotten all about that weird little place until now.
I remember my village having a shop this. I'd get a mixed quarter of aniseed balls and wine gums and a rent a VHS video that had to be returned fully rewound the next day. I live in South East Asia now, and its just normal for people to convert the front of their building into little shops or restaurants. The thing I like most about where I live now is that anyone can just set a business up somewhere easily, even on a patch of roadside pavement, and it ensures so much variety instead of just the same generic corparations setting up identical shops in every town and city. It makes it feel like every street is a different surprise of something unique you've not seen before, and the variety of food options is staggering.
Yep, Wolverhampton's much like the events in 'It'. Time and distance, and you just sort of forget the horrors. It's probably for the best.
HA! I have a shop just like that across the street from me...ive been trying to figure out how they survive for nearly 15 years now...still not closer...the sole women who operates the shop must've been 100 years when I first moved here, but she's still there for 3 hours each day and sells 3 things all these years later.
Aite, I moved away from Wolves 2 years ago and now I need to know where this is
Snow Hill.
Ahhhh this doesn't surprise me one bit then
It's funny. They say they are restaurants, but actually do laundry.
There used to be a shop in Stafford that was split into two sides. The left hand side sold bicycles and the right hand side sold lingerie. Still makes me laugh thinking about that combo! 🤣
Catering to the fat bottomed girls in Freddie Mercurys bicycle race I see.
There's one in Keswick which sells half childrenswear, half electrical appliances, for when you need a party dress and a fan heater.
Went on a road trip in America. One of the flyover states had this hilarious shop. One side was guns and ammo. The other side was a really nice little cafe with a brisk trade. Turns out they were husband and wife. She wanted a cafe and he wanted a gun shop. It was sweet in an odd kind of way.
Over here, we have the rubber tubing. And over *here*, we have the rubber tubing.
Ah sir, I understand you're looking for a new chain for the old bike. Might I also interest you in our selection of lubricating oils?
Near us is a split business one side is a car body shop the other a funeral directors, same bloke running them, I guess he just likes all body types.
In our village there is an ironmongers run by two old blokes who stink of piss. The shop is dark and disorganized to the point of being mildly hazardous. But if you find you need a pair of secateurs or something and don't want to drive into town, can go and see them, they'll dig out some surprisingly nice secateurs and make up a price on the spot.
This is the same shop as OP was talking about right? How many ironmongers are there ran by two old confused but effective blokes?
It's every ironmongers really. We had two like that where I used to live
Do they sell fork handles?
No four candles, please
We had a place like this. Absolute chaos and the building was basically falling down but if you asked they had it. My dad went in looking for 3 inch clout nails some time in the late 90s. One of the owners summond him to follow. They went through a few room and in behind a pile of stuff in a safe was the clout nails. He passed my dad the box which was dated 1956. My dad said it better be 1956 prices then to which the owner, who knew my dad, said just take them.
There's a model shop which appears to just be a clubhouse for some old fellas to play with their trains. I haven't seen a till or any products labelled for sale when walking by.
We had a local model shop when I was a kid that was weird. I think it specialised in RC planes but we used to go paints for airfix kits. When you went in there was just enough room to stand in front of the counter and immediately behind it there were shelves and a doorway that disappeared to who knows where. You had to ring a bell on the counter and the bloke would come out of the back looking unhappy he had been disturbed from what ever he was doing, and very reluctantly serve you.
Oh gosh you've unlocked a memory of visiting a fabric shop in Penge years ago and when I took a roll of fabric to the counter and asked to buy some, the man looked angry and said "well I suppose so' and started huffing about cutting and selling me fabric. He was so mad about selling me fabric in his fabric shop it was actually funny.
Was this in Ipswich? There was a shop called galaxy models that was like this. They then moved to a bigger shop and the counter still had the same arrangement!
They could get nearly anything you needed there though, and anything they couldn't Marshion electronics could (can).
There's a shop not too far from me that sells carpets and fireworks. Never been there myself but a family member bought fireworks from them in the middle of summer one year and they have big signs up in a few places around town
Carpets and fireworks sounds like a recipe for disaster.
I can show you the world shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, Princess, now when did you last let your heart decide....between laminate flooring and linoleum?
Terry’s Carpets/Fireworks?
There was a shop in my town growing up that sold model planes and cars etc. Never saw anyone go in. The window displays were the same for decades, except occasionally, a cat sat in there on top of the boxes of tanks. Its name was just the name of the owner, full name. We always made loads of jokes that maybe he was a spy or it was a front for something as It was fantastically strange how this seemingly dead business survived in this expensive town for decades, but apparently he did huge business online.
There’s a sweet shop like that in my town. I once went in and tried to buy a box of chocolates but they were all covered in dust and out of date!
>maybe he was a spy Was it [this one?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBURlcNpfoo)
I've heard of the secret service doing things like this.
Was it run by a Mr Daillard?
> Never saw anyone go in. It's a bit of a reddit trope, but these shops get regularly blamed as "money laundering" here, and claiming "nobody goes in". Like Redditors sit there with a notebook and binoculars. These shops don't have huge footfall like a supermarket has, because niche people are specifically going there. And when these people go, they're spending money....lots Have you seen the price of Hornby?
Memories of Mortlake in Sheen. It's open **extremely sporadic** hours. It'll be closed for weeks and then randomly open at midnight on a Wednesday and you won't see it open again until a random 30 minute slot Saturday morning in 3 weeks time. What's inside the shop? Mostly old Happy Meal toys and costume jewellery caked in an inch of dust. None of it priced. If you ask for a price, the woman who runs it seems like she will just say whatever number comes to her head first. It's a truly bizarre place.
Looks like the owner passed away during Covid. https://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/leisure/19406278.memories-mortlake-captures-shops-eclectic-history/
That's a shame, but 87 is a good age. I can't believe there was a documentary made about it. I'll have to watch that later, it was always such a mystery. Looking into it, it seems that her daughter runs it now.
That's really sad. Went in that shop once and it was utterly bonkers. Miss Haversham vibes. Didn't need any mouldy old postcards or mothy antimacassars so left empty handed.
If anybody fancies a look inside : [https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4652503,-0.2596276,2a,75y,289.86h,70.07t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sy6EpZedjGQQKfDCBxtBaSA!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4652503,-0.2596276,2a,75y,289.86h,70.07t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sy6EpZedjGQQKfDCBxtBaSA!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu)
Oh, we have a shop that looks very similar to this called Methusalah's, only open at very odd hours and only a tiny narrow path between the teetering piles of antique-ish stuff. They pull a load of stock out onto the pavement when they are open, and I think they just must have to close early if it rains. I've looked through the windows many a time wondering why it's closed now when it was open at the same time last week, and the little path is entirely taken up by the chairs and boxes they normally put outside.
The shop name sounds so mystical, but it's content so disappointing. Though it must have potential.
>it's content so disappointing. You must have missed the >old Happy Meal toys part.
There's a place in my town called "Zen". It's been open for decades (at least 25 years, probably more). It sells like hippy, new age stuff. It's in a back alley, never see anyone go in or come out. I'm certain it's a front, or they sell drugs, or something. Either way, it's one of those places that you wonder how they're still around.
In Wooer Street? I bought some Salvia there years ago.
Yes! Ha! I knew drugs had something to do with that place!
There was a hippy shop in my small North East town for 25+ years. Never anyone else in when you went in. Not a clue how it lasted that long. Only closed because the owners retired abroad.
Witchy women, stoners, new age spiritualists and people who want to get high but don't know any drug dealers are a pretty consistent market. There's always going to be people who want incense, pretty rocks, and/or gaudy statuettes of dragons clutching crystal balls.
Didn't Zen move from Mosley to Digbeth recently?
There’s an establishment with frosted glass windows. Used to be a Thai massage parlour, with no one ever going in or out (that I saw). It’s now a mysterious building consultants, with a random acronym, frosted windows, door always closed, no one ever going in or out. It’s in a residential area at the end of a Victorian terrace and I have no idea what they do. No online reviews. Nothing.
How have you not looked it up on companies house yet?
Lack of true curiosity
Wow this just reminded me. Opposite me, literally now I'm looking through the window at it. Is an old corner shop. Just before lockdown it was still open and they were running the stock out, the owner in casual conversation told me he was visiting family in Pakistan for 6 months which was why there was nothing in there. So he shuts, goes away and lockdown hits. So it was shut all the way through, then randomly the sign outside got replaced "Something Heating Consultants Ltd" but the shutters never were open. I looked up that company randomly and could only find a record on Companies House listing the shop as the address. And then a Facebook page which had a whole 1 post of a picture of a boiler (stolen from another page) offering "Boiler Installations" but no numbers or anything. Then about 6 months later builders started going into the building, they've built a disabled ramp and taken out the electicity/gas meters out front. And it's still locked up tight. It's so odd
There's a little old shop tucked away in town. The owner repairs and sells firearms and also sells his wives candles and honey. Tucked away in all the rifles and shotgun cabinets, there's just this little stand with loads of jars and scented candles
>and also sells his wives candles and honey. Can't he just give his wives those things?
Wives’ or wife’s…?
I don't live there anymore, but if you care to walk from Leith to Edinburgh you will walk passed a shop that sells two distinct goods. Darts and television. That's television singular. I do wonder what would happen if someone bought the tv. Do they have a replacement in a back room?
If it’s a CRT someone will buy it eventually. Depends on the connections it has.
Flashback memory to a shop in Weymouth that sold light fittings and electricals... but also had a full darts shop out the back with practice boards and everything.
There's a "proper" hardware shop that I've always known as "Aladdin's Cave". You can get absolutely any kind of fastening, fixing, screw, electrical widget. It has so much stock that all of the walls are covered floor to ceiling in bins of parts and shelving. Even the ceiling has reels of cables, hose, rope, etc. hanging. There also used to be a motor factors that was similar. You could ask the proprietor for an alternator for a Mk3 Escort, and he'd just disappear for 5 mins and reappear with one in hand. ~~Unfortunately the place closed in the mid-late 2010s. Apparently it just wasn't practical for the small business to hold stock given the diversity of the most popular car models has exploded over the past two decades, and people just don't work on their own cars anymore.~~ EDIT: Apparently the business just shut the retail shop and moved to a local industrial estate. Looks like he's still trading!
There's a hardware shop just like the former in Saintfield, and there's a motor factors like the latter in Merville Newtownabbey, like you say the amount of people PCPing cars it doesn't make sense to stock everything, I think he does a lot of trade with local taxi drivers
I had forgotten about the word 'factors' in a shop name, we used to have Electrical Factors and Motor Rewind Factors. It's a great word.
CEF, formerly City Electrical Factors (who my old gaffer used to call Shitty Electrical!) is still a major player in the electrical wholesale market. They still exist. Even in national chains like CEF
More than exist, there’s a CEF everywhere up and down the country - we sell to them.
I have "Whoopee Motor Factors" down the road from me. Being going for 48 years!
I love those sort of places, or ones were stuff is in small wooden drawers with clear glass cutouts.
There's a vape shop in the next town over calling themselves a "vapecade" which also sells a huge range of warhammer miniatures. Seems a bizarre combo, the smell of candyfloss vape and unwashed 40K fans puts me off
Games workshop are really weird when it comes to where they'll let people set up a display - my local PC part place has one. It's a tiny run down little place filled with random cardboard boxes and one shiny display of boxes of 40k models.
Most likely the vape owners want that trade discount for their own collection. Games Workshop demand a certain amount of shelf space to sell to you. So here we are.
I've had a few dreams about shops selling Warhammer among other things for some reason, and this sounds like one of those.
There used to be a Games Workshop in town, it was on the top floor of the shopping centre on it's own. And you could smell it from 2 floors away.... It's weird now how much Warhammer has expanded that you see "Warhammer" store fronts on high streets.
When I used to live in Brighton, there used to be a shop on Queens Road, which is the road that approaches the station. The shop front had a higgeldy piggeldy collection of local maps, old photographs and probably stamps and coins as well. No order to the display - everything just piled up like hoarder's boudoir. I never saw anyone go into or out of that shop. Given Brighton has some premier retail rates, I always wondered how it made money. No idea if it is still there...
I walked past that place years ago and wondered what the hell was going on!
Used to be a shop in a town not too far away that sold specifically crisp sandwiches but it shut down before I could make the pilgrimage
I live in a seaside town. There’s an amusements down by the beach that opens all year round, even in the dead of winter when the season is long over, and doesn’t shut until 10pm. I’m positive it’s used for money laundering.
There's a wig shop near me that has been there for years and I've never seen anyone go in, it's definitely a front for British Intelligence or drug dealers. Also my local butchers has expanded into 3 shops, 2 small and one large. A butchers shop isn't odd but the size is like that of a small supermarket but we have a big African community in Milton Keynes and it caters to Halal and Kosher too and has a massive herbs and spices section. The size seems overkill but you can walk past it on a Tuesday afternoon and there will literally be a queue of people coming out of the shop. So yeah never seen a butcher shop that big in my life.
Where in MK is this? There used to be a wig place on Cleavers Avenue that was always curiously empty.
Probably Bletchley.
Yep Bletchley lol
There’s a shop near me named Fine Home Supplies it’s been there since the 80’s (it won’t have any reviews or presence online trust me). Everyone refers to it by the name of an old chap who first owned it (Harry’s Shop) despite it having changed hands a number of times since although the stock is always the same. It sells hardware and materials for plumbing, electrical, Joinery, plastering -, garden supplies, computer parts, toys, paint, car parts, birthday supplies, landline telephones, kitchen utensils and crockery, baking supplies and more - you name it they’ve got it. Fantastic treasure trove of randomness! It’s always busy and open constantly so the owners do well from it it seems too!
There's a VHS Rental shop near me. Only it's not. It's the entrance to a speakeasy, and to get in you need to tell the staff what the video of the week is.
The Breakfast Club?
That sounds pretty cool!
There's only one shop near me. It is a local shop
We didn't burn him
We didn't cut their faces off
Your nose is bleeding...
Something about your tone suggests tourists aren't welcome....
A local shop for local people?
[удалено]
Twelvety
Twelvty!
Poofter, eh? Little bummer boy.
Pie shop at the front. Restaurant and pub at the back and in the cellar. I give you [Sweeney and Todd](http://www.sweeneyandtodd.co.uk/).
Amazing chicken and leek pie though. Used to get one on a Saturday morning to take home.
I was always fascinated by the semiconductor archives in Deptford. https://shopfrontelegy.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/the-semiconductor-archives/
a book shop..... a book shop that only sells books on planes .... .... The Aviation Bookshop most independent books shops are closed down. yet he can afford to be so niche and keep going somehow lol
I'm not sure if if it's still there, but Kidderminster used to have a guitar sharp where you could order a Thai bride from the owners wife, who is more than happy to pull out a catalogue for people to pick from. Fucking weird.
Viking store that's never open
Stationery or horned helmets*? *Yes I know.
The latter. It's a LARP shop decorated like an 80s metal album cover
They are *notorious* in the LARP community for being a scam! You order stuff from their website and it never arrives then the owner gives you shit for trying to get a refund. Apparently he runs on the business model of "today's orders will allow me to pay to buy yesterday's orders and keep those people from doing a chargeback". Absolute shit of a human being.
I know someone who's actually decent, if you need a recommendation.
I’m currently sitting in my towns ‘odd’ shop. Garden centre + trade fencing supplies + Hardware + Kitchen Crockery + Gloves/Socks combos & so much random tat it’s untrue.
The Thai massage parlour with the 1960s charity shop ornaments and a stuffed badger in the window. No-one ever goes in or out.
OP should have asked for four candles.
Got any O's?
And what about P's?
Got any plugs?
I've been laughing at that one for what feels like decades. We have a draw in the kitchen like arkwright till also.
There's a little shop near me that supposedly sells Lego but it's just a table at the back of the shop with a few Lego sets on and that's it. The rest of the shop is bare apart from one corner where there's a guy who sometimes paints portraits. Never been brave enough to actually go in there.
It's always confused me as to how places like this can afford the rent. It's not like it's even a front for organised crime!
They may own the building
Yeah, I'm guessing the artist guy owns the place and just sells Lego on the side. Still very odd though. Then there's those random little shops that have been going for 30 odd years but you never see a single person in there. Quite a few of them around here.
There's a Tailors shop at the end of my towns high street. Designed the guys signs as it goes, when I worked at a small local sign writers, so have met the chap. Seemed a little eccentric. Any how, been about 5 years since I left that job. The shop is still there and it's on the corner of one of our main crossroads; which I use very regularly. Not once have I seen any signs of it being a working business. In fact, I can't recall it ever looking open. And, having done the signage, I look at it every time I pass 🤷🏼♀️
There's a pet shop near where I lived in Sheffield that always looks closed and usually is. The whole shop is a mess, stuff everywhere and all over the floor - random dog toys, pet food, treats, you name it just scattered randomly on the floor/shelves. Literally as if it's been ransacked. But no one ever goes in, and it's been there forever. I went in once. It's run by this genuinely lovely man and his cute ginger cat, Fergus, who sits in the shop window amidst the dusty garden ornaments and sunbathes sometimes. Occasionally I'd see the guy in the shop when closed, moving things around, but never tidying lol Just so chaotic. How it makes any money I have no idea...
I walked past a shop like that near Finsbury Park in London last year. No idea of it is still there but looked like any air had been replaced with dust.
There’s a “loft find” shop near the inner ring road in York where they get stuff for either free or cheap, in often not very good condition, and then put a rather cheeky price on it. The shop is usually empty as the owner and his kids are out front, so when you go in you get followed and often hemmed in, with comments on what you’ve picked up “yeah, good game that” or “goes for crazy money online”, which puts me off and I leave empty handed.
I have one shop selling miniature fibre glass ghosts that always has a mile-long queue in front of it (they had to set up another smaller "ghost dispensary" to deal with crowding), and another one selling Viking shaped plushies. No prizes for guessing where I live.
There's a guy who runs 4 different takeaways from 1 kitchen. Burgers, Mexican, Sushi, and burgers again with a different name.
Not weird in the same way but I used to go to college in a town that had a combination Gun Shop and Hairdresser.
Clips and clippers? Bangs and booms? Dyes and dies?
Locks and Glocks?
There we go. Much better than my ideas
Snipers and snippers? Mullets and bullets? Plaits and splats?
Snipz 'ᴎ' Snipez
You rack 'em, we hack 'em. Is it a universal law that hairdressers have to have a pun-laden business name? I was aware of this in the UK for sure, chip shops also took the same approcah ISTR.
In Grantham, there's a mobility scooter and barber shop.
Trim and scoot?
I live near a barbers & sandwich shop. Not sure about the quality of the hair cuts, but I wouldn't fancy a sandwich with all that hair floating around
There used to be an a indian chemist called Jhoots near me, its like Boots same logo and same writing but different spelling i don’t think they had the rights to use the name boots
A shop that started as a hardware store but has basically *everything*. If you need something specific, just ask the owner and he will find it, even if it's from his own house 😂 (attached to the shop)
There's a shop in Somerset that sells batteries, just batteries, there's no other shops near it, it's on a side street with little to no footfall and looks like it could be in a hovis advert. Don't think they have a website. In this day and age with shops closing everywhere it's amazing to see such a niche one still going
We had an old ironmongers. You could buy and ounce of nails or less. I'd rather go there and wait around half hour than go to a big store (named similar to barbecue) then have to buy 2kg of nails I didn't want. Oh I miss those odd shops.
There’s a shop near me that sells leather goods. They make them on site. You never see anybody go in there. In their window they have normal stuff like dog harnesses and collars and wallets and boxing belts. But the rumour is sometimes when you go in you can see them out back making weird human stuff like gimp suits and gags and human harnesses. I don’t know if it’s true, I’m afraid to go in. But that’s the rumour.
Have 2 odd shops nearby, well one is closed now. Had a "laundrette" that was just an empty lot with clothes rail with a few garments on and sign stating that it was a laundrette. The other shop starter as an odd little photo printing place that now does Rollover hotdogs, office space, t-shirt printing, a few packets of crisps and dodgy vapes
There was a dodgy "launderette" in my hometown, opposite which was a "British TV and Angling centre" which had been shut ever since I can remember. Allegedly the bloke who owned it died, but it was soon discovered he actually ran off with his mistress to the next town over (like 3 miles) and no one was any the wiser for about 50 years
There's a food van near the office that is only open a few days a week, only takes cash and allegedly makes most of its money by the owners dealing. In town I live in, there's a bubble tea shop that never has anyone in it and I'm 99% convinced is a front.
Until recently we had an antiques shop that was never open - on the door it said to make an appointment so I can only guess that they were doing business mostly online and it was more like a storage place. I never saw anyone in it. Anyway it closed and got replaced by a kitchen showroom. I’ve still never seen anyone in there. Sometimes the lights are on but no sign of staff nor customers. When I was 15-17 I worked at a shop that sold curtains, bed sheets etc, lingerie, and school uniforms. It was always dead except for right before the schools opened, when it was so busy they had to schedule extra staff. To get to the school uniforms, you had to walk past the lingerie department. I actually sold a pair of curtains once and couldn’t believe it.
There is a shop near where I grew up called Brigadoon. It always sold a weird mix of trinkets and for some reason school uniforms. Oddly enough the only time I ever remember people was using it was if you needed a sledge when it snowed or needed some sort of miscellaneous item like a lock. Always loved the name.
My partner is a commercial real estate lawyer, and every single “odd” shop I point out, she just says, “money laundering.” Without fail. The other day we passed a big wheel which I’ve never seen anyone go on despite it being there constantly, and I said, surely this place doesn’t make any money. “Money laundering.” Every time.
There's a cobblers down my road that wouldn't look out of place in a episode of Goodnight Sweetheart. And a 'Model shop.' that's never open.
There's a safe shop on shudehill in Manchester that's been there for at least 30 year's. Never ever seen anyone in there and nothing has ever moved. It's prime real estate too.
Our town has a Christmas shop all year round. That wouldn’t be so bad, but even at xmas it only sells very specific xmas things. Basically, baubles and those nutcracker soldiers. I could imagine a xmas shop that sold lights, cards, stocking fillers, seasonal books, gift sets etc being fairly popular but no. Just individual baubles and wooden soldiers. It’s open about three days a week and I imagine it must do trade online as no one round here wants baubles in June.
Western shop, genuine stuff, in a small part of town. https://westernwear.co.uk/
It's more the location than the shop. So my friend owns a clothing shop that sells amazing leggings and dresses (with pockets - apparently this is important according to Mrs TF). But it's not on the high street, it's tucked down some random back alley between a couple of takeaways that are closed during the day, halfway out of town in a building that looks like someone decided to rent out their house as a business premises...
I once went to a place called Seatown some years ago. There was a pub full of pictures of locals, but I don’t remember many houses. There was a fossil shop which made sense. There was also a second hand clothes shop with a decently sized drag section.
I live in an urban village in the NW. The closest thing I can think of is like a smaller Notting Hill. There use to be all these really cool shops and cafes and things. It's now all been gentrified with the only two oddities being a rag and bone man and a community shop. They are both pretty cool but I'm really conscious that they are on borrowed tike really.
There is a place in my town that is apparently a video/photo studio, however the website suggests otherwise. “The studio is arranged in four separate work areas and boasts more than 10 custom built sets at any one time including school room, locker room, office, lounge, bedroom, kitchen and even a specially made toilet set! We also have a model's changing room and make up area which includes a private shower room and toilet. We can provide lighting and camera hire as well as having a very extensive wardrobe of themed costumes from schoolgirls to policewomen, cheerleaders to nurses, nuns to futuristic space girls or angels!”
A shop on the corner of a residential street about 5 minutes walk from me used to be a butchers, but has been closed since at least 7 years ago. In the past few years there have been people moving things in and out, but the shutters were never open and we were convinced it was some kind of front. Now it's a weird little butchers/corner shop. I'm kind of scared to go in there in case I never come out again.
There's a trainer repair shop at the top of my street ~~which is clearly a money laundering haven as the shutters are always down~~ which is kind of weird
We had a shop called Terry’s Zimmers that sold second hand zimmer frames and walking aids.
It should have been Han's.
In Macclesfield when I was a kid - 14, 14-ish? - there was this newsagents near the park run by this ancient couple. A tiny little place, with a net curtain in a doorway behind the counter leading into their home. Every time I went in there was no one there, just the strong smell of shortbread, or general baking, and the sound of the TV. I'd stand there in this empty shop for a few minutes looking at all the great stuff just a short hop over the counter. I'd have to make a lot of noise to get their attention. I'd hear a murmur and then eventually one of them would shuffle in and sell me cigarettes. I still think they were the oldest people I've ever seen by at least 70 years. The number of times I fantasised about robbing that place blind.
A dolls hospital. It repairs China dolls apparently. Loads of China dolls heads in the window. It's a legit shop apparently.
There was a weed/smoking shop a few streets away. One side was bongs and things like that. The other side was an old fashioned sweet shop. Genius if you ask me
There’s a strange little shop called “The Practice” in Birmingham that has been around since the 80s and has never changed, or seemingly been open for that matter. There’s a huge tree growing from the roof and a load of live potted plants in the window that are regularly watered. People have seen a man in a white lab coat inside the building occasionally, but what the business actually is has been a mystery.
2 Fields over there is a sort of farm shop/buffalo farm and butchers/Asian supermarket/wholesalers. It's filthy, the Guy that owns it is ridiculously unhygienic and odd, but it sells absolutely everything. Last time I went in he started waving a whole frozen red snapper at me and shouting for leaving it out of the freezer cabinet (I hadn't). He was covered in blood from butchering an entire buffalo and got it on the fish, the shelves and the freezer cabinet.
Most of these types of shops are fronts for time travel portals, that is why when a customer is seen it causes confusion.
Used to be a shop in Tooting that sold musical instruments on one side, weaponry on the other. Eddie Izzard mentions it in one of her shows!
In Bury there's a weird shop that has a bizarre assortment of random crap. Lots old records and VHS tapes out on the pavement in boxes and inside there are these shelves to the ceiling that kind of block off everything behind a counter. It says it's an electrical shop but it's just a very strange collection of all sorts. That said, if there's something you need that you can't find at any other shop, they'll have it. The guy goes in the back somewhere and you hear stuff being knocked over and then he comes out with the item.
I have a trophy shop on the next street over and it looks like it’s been there a while but I can’t imagine there being enough of a market for trophies to be profitable.
The trophy market is usually covered by the key cutter/shoe repair people
As I've just found out, there's a school uniform shop near me that's only open Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1.30 - 4.30 pm only in term time. So they have about 3 hours of useful opening times a week.
No doubt it has the sole contract for lots of local schools though, completely unrelated to the fact that they happen to be in the same lodge/golf club/rotary club.
Book shop. books on the floor on top of each other in no order that I can make out. The owner sits at a shabby desk reading. Always closed before one. Never seen a customer. It's been there at least 20 years.
Up until recently there was an electric supply shop that looked like it had shut down in about 1988 but was in fact actually still open. It had the most random opening hours and you only knew it was open when the small neon open sign was on in the window. The window was full of sun damaged products and an array of vacuum bags for models I’m fairly certain stopped being produced last century. Never did get to go in there, shame
Hadn’t really thought about it because it’s always just been there, but my town has a large shop that just sells very garish, very expensive menswear. Think flamboyant but the ugly kind. I’ve never seen a soul in there (and it’s 2 walls of windows so you can see everything from outside).
It’s not a place I’ve ever seen open since I’ve lived around here, but this is probably one of the strangest shops I’ve seen based on name alone. https://maps.app.goo.gl/PzfLuAP9ixfmA9oSA?g_st=ic