Recesssion watch: Unnatural business combinations
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Recession
This post is part of a series about real-life signs we're in a recession.
Tobias Buckell tells me that the dojo in his hometown has added a new side business to its martial arts; balloons. This is one example of a growing movement of small businesses compensating for falling sales by adding new business products, sometimes with comedic results.
In my neighborhood, the local model train shop is now also making banners. Signs announcing the lure of 'free internet inside' are on every business door except the portable toilets.
I see the potential for ancillary businesses as a great way to weather the recession. For example-
- A combination funeral parlor and Ebay shop (sell off the estate)
- Why not cross Terrier breeding with ditch digging?
- A diaper service / defumigating service would be a natural.
- Tobacconists could make a mint selling bottled oxygen.
- Why don't laundromats sell deodorant?
- How about a combination pizza parlor & Weight Watcher's center?
- An optometrist that runs a car body shop on the side.
- And pick your politician – shouldn't they be selling bottled gas?
What is the funniest or oddest business combination you've seen?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-05-2008 @ 9:58PM
Bob Chonoles said...
In certain sections of Brooklyn NYC, where elevator apt buildings exist, the first floor of those buildings are frequently occupied by professionals. Doctors, Dentists, and Lawyer are the usual occupants. On Ocean Av a pair of business' unrelated, are a Dentist and a Podiatrist. This immediately brings to mind the place to come for treatment of "Hoof and Mouth Disease". Brooklyn is not noted for Cattle raising but if you have a Cow , this is the place to come for a check-up.
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5-08-2008 @ 9:44AM
Liz said...
lol...Osman Pies and Optical. I think they just recently got rid of the pies though.
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5-08-2008 @ 9:52AM
AJ said...
Odd combination I saw years ago... Carpet and Burgers. One large building that housed a carpet store and on one end had a grill that sold fast food.
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5-08-2008 @ 10:03AM
Rick said...
I saw an antiques and bait shop combo in Kentucky once.
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5-08-2008 @ 11:07AM
ihsia said...
There was a Chinese restaurant in town that was also a mortage broker firm. Sometimes you had to wait for a while for dinner because the chef was closing a deal in the office.
Now they have sold the restaurant and moved their mortage business somewhere else. You still have to wait for dinner because the business is really goo.
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5-08-2008 @ 11:43AM
LP said...
I just saw a good one the other day: Mexican Foods and Construction (written on the same truck!).
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5-08-2008 @ 11:47AM
Rick Litten said...
We have a small chain of Video store/tanning where I live
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5-08-2008 @ 12:09PM
j9 said...
in my town there was a store called religious items and hair products...like wtf can u find a bible next to the hairspray?
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5-08-2008 @ 1:34PM
P. Dickinson said...
In CNY there was a famous Pizzeria and Bridal Boutique that did huge business in both offerings for decades.
The dresses were in an adjacent building... so you did not have to worry about smelling like a "pizza with everything" on your special day!
Sadly, the bridal shop closed recently... leaving the owners to take down the huge inflatable gorilla on the roof. Can't tell why that was ever up there in the first place. Pizza is still very good though.
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5-08-2008 @ 1:37PM
digtime said...
Al's Welding and Landscape Co.
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5-09-2008 @ 8:45AM
Lagsum said...
In Lewes, DE, on Route 1, there is a business that sells Worms 'N Perms!
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5-09-2008 @ 8:59AM
alysse said...
No surprise, just reading it wrong. These are entrepreneurs and that's what they do. Always looking for ways to expand market. If you don't then you are the one out of luck. The stupid thing to do is rely on one thing for your source of income or assume the market will never change. We had plenty of textile jobs in the south, people thought they would be employed forever. Well gone now and they have no other source. Good news is many learned and started their own businesses, doing much better than before.
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5-09-2008 @ 10:24AM
natalie said...
in a town near where i live, a music store went out of business, and in its place?
combination porn and smoke shop.
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5-09-2008 @ 12:34PM
Leslie Thilges said...
We have some odd combos in our small city - most notably the Beer Depot/Austin Mortgage. With the recent mortgage crisis, makes me think we're either fortifying ourselves to take the plunge or trying to recover afterward!
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5-11-2008 @ 10:30PM
jp said...
Years ago, I used worked as a tax preparer for an older man who had an income tax service set-up inside one of his laundromats. And ironically, he used to really 'clean' up!!
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5-28-2008 @ 12:52AM
Dee said...
10 years ago when I lived in London, England, there was a shop that was exactly half butcher shop and half East Indian video store, with only one door and one cash register. It always made me chuckle when I walked past and saw the bright red, raw meat on one side and the colorful, fancy Indian costume on the film posters and video covers on the other side.
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7-21-2008 @ 2:26AM
Shannon Forbes said...
"Years ago in Venice, California (the '80s, I think it was), there was a little three-table place called "House of Teriyaki." When it went under and the new people came with a bakery catering to the early-morning beach crowd, they didn't have enough money to make a whole new sign so they just made a little addition to the old sign, which now read "House of Teriyaki - Donut." (Yes, "Donut" singular. For the life of me I could never figure out why they couldn't afford that final "S") It always made me cringe to think of Teriyaki-flavored donuts. Still does.
5-24-2008 @ 2:59PM
pony said...
I like the one down the street from me they sell Hardwood floors, carpet, liquor, bait and propane, nice combo of derelicts and retirees, it also doubles as the management office to the trailer park next door. Very classy.
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5-12-2008 @ 10:32PM
Vince said...
We have a business here in Indiana called Tom's Car Care. A combination Car Wash, Rapid Oil Change and Coffee/Sandwich Shop. Their motto is "Where we keep the oil, soap and coffee separate."
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5-15-2008 @ 3:34PM
Kim said...
This is too funny. Just today I saw a vehicle body repair shop and a thrift store all in one. I'm thinking folks can't afford to repair their vehicles so the owners aren't making enough money to feed the family. Therefore, they're selling their own property, hence the thrift store.
Good luck in this economy, everyone! We're gonna need it!
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