Strange restaurant fusions have been a California staple almost forever. You know: "Chinese-Mexican health food"; or "Donuts Baked Fresh every morning! & Korean Barbeque." Now the trend is spreading into other retail arenas. One shop just opened in a local mini-mall:

"Dry Cleaning
Alterations
Health Food"

Any weird combos in your neighborhood?

The one that comes to mind for me is the place in town that sells scooters/mopeds, jewelry, clothing, and if I recall right, they even have a little tea bar set up. How's that for a mix?

It looks like a cycle shop though because they have all the scooter/mopeds sitting on the sidewalk.

The first, and only time I went in, I was shocked to see everything else they carried. Well, maybe I will go back though because they had some cute silver jewelry.

The local livestock market has a restaurant in it. Does that count? The one and only time we ever went (we're more careful of restaurant recommendations now <g>) we got "the" prime seat underneath the bug zapper. A dining experience never to be topped...sitting there eating our hamburgers, listening to the bug zapper going zzzzzzzzzzzch! every so often.

Oh! and they have a big glass window, maybe 5 feet long by 4 feet high (or vice versa, there was waaaaaaaay too much stimulation going on for my senses to retain everything) where diners could watch as the livestock was paraded through. Folks would auction on cattle, goats, sheep. It was a really freaky experience for us. As I recall, neither one of us finished eating.

There's probably a story there but my neurons won't fire in synch enough for me to work it out.

Everywhere around this one place I lived was something and Jerk Chicken. I have no idea why it was Chinese food and Jerk chicken, sushi and Jerk chicken. There was a video store that sold jerk chicken. Thing is, my roomie and I didn't really think of the area as heavily Jamaican or island-populated. We never could figure out the fascination with the jerk chicken.

There was an odd couple here last year, it lasted only about 6 months though. It was a laundromat/washateria with a sandwich/deli type restaurant. It was called Suds & Subs. I guess there was something about the smell of dirty socks that killed the appetite?

I know this is a littel different , but my friends and I referred to ourselves as,"Women of the 90's" because we bought our food and clothes at the same store...Sam's Club/ BJ's/PRice Club!

Think about it. You can get ANYTHING there. I'm waiting for the to sell cars. The already service them. Why not?

I think some of these other small businesses probably figure they're paying for the rental space and all the overhead , why not try to sell anything they can.