Overseas, where I lived a great deal of the last couple decades, it was never very unusual to find odd combinations of businesses – especially in China – like “Wong’s Bike Repair, Satellite TV, and Pet Clinic” or whatever.
That’s not so common in the US, in my experience, except in New Orleans, and even more so since Katrina.
Wandering around mid city a couple weeks ago, my daughter pointed out “Soprano’s Meat Market”, which is a meat market/hot lunch/mini mart/liquor/po boy sandwich place/check cashing/and ‘we buy used gold’ establishment run by a couple of Armenian brothers in a largely African-American neighborhood.
For some reason this cracked me up. It’s never unusual there to find a Chinese couple selling Chinese food/po boys/lotto/mini mart, but this place takes the cake for me! One of my other favorites is Igor’s 24 Hour Laundry/Bar/Restaurant/Video Poker!
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