History Main / TheConvenientStoreNextDoor

* An episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' plays on this, with the owner of a pet store that was broken into stating that he's behind a bank. [[spoiler:In reality, the pet store was a front for a diamond smuggling operation, and was the thieves' target the whole time.]]

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[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/TheLadykillers2004'' has a group of criminals posing as musicians who practice in the cellar of a boarding house, while tunneling from the cellar to a vault they intend to rob. (In [[Film/TheLadykillers1955 the 1955 original]], the robbery is a straight ArmedBlag, and the boarding house is just where they meet to plot the job beforehand and regroup afterwards.)

* In the French film ''Film/{{Rififi}}'', criminals rent the office above a jewelery store and tunnel in through the ceiling.

* ''Film/ShortCircuit2'', the villains were doing this to break into the bank when the protagonists buy the warehouse. The villains first try to drive the heroes away, then trick Johnny Five into digging the tunnel for them.
* In ''Stark Raving Mad'' (2002), with a nightclub.
* Played with in ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance''. The bad guys blow up a subway station, then disguise themselves as contractors there to clear debris and conduct repairs, while actually using their equipment to dig into the vault of a nearby bank.
* In ''Film/SherlockHolmes1932'', Moriarty buys the pet store that backs in to Faulkner's Bank and has his gang tunnel through from the basement into the vault.
* In ''Film/TheEscapist'', Lenny makes use of the fact the confessional wall in the chapel abuts the laundry, and that prisoners have relatively free access to the chapel, to surreptitiously weaken the wall of the confessional so they can break through the wall into the laundry on the day of the escape.
* In ''Film/HighHeelsAndLowLifes'', Mason and his gang tunnel into the safe deposit vault through the basement of the building next door.
* In ''Film/HenrysCrime'', Henry discovers a long forgotten [[SecretUndergroundPassage bootlegger's tunnel]] which runs from the bank to a theatre across the alleyway. He and Max plan to infiltrate the theatre and its current production of Chekhov's ''Theatre/TheCherryOrchard'' to enough time to dig their way to the adjacent bank vault.

* OlderThanTelevision: The Franchise/SherlockHolmes story ''The Red-Headed League'' (1891) does this with a pawn shop across the way from a bank. Unlike most examples, the business used here [[spoiler:is actually ''legitimate'' (and was to begin with); the eponymous "League" was concocted to distract the owner, while the shop's (new) assistant covered for the gang digging the tunnel to the bank.]]

* The first published book of ''Literature/TheStainlessSteelRat'' series starts with that as the protagonist's latest job. He rents a part of a warehouse. Next room, there is a large amount of seldom checked government supplies. He makes a hole, and sells these supplies with different labels.

* In ''{{Literature/Banco}}'', it's the rental house across the street. Papillon is recruited to help dig a tunnel under a side street into the [[BankRobbery bank's vault while it's closed for the weekend]]. They work hard in the tunnel and take care to keep neighbors and passersby from seeing the additional gang members coming or going. The dirt is smuggled into planters in the backyard. The heist fails when a detour forces a heavy truck down the side street and it falls into the tunnel; the gang was celebrating elsewhere and they manage to get away.

* ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'': Variant in the second book, in that it's not a robbery. Bothawui's capital city, Drev'starn, is home to the planet's planetary shield generators, and there's a Ho'Din tapcafe two blocks away from the shield generator building... but it's sitting right on top of one of the power cable conduits to the generator building. So a couple of the villains manage to get access to the tapcafe's basement and dig down to the conduit, then use that to send [[WeaponizedAnimal lizards with bombs attached]] through it and into the generator building to destroy it, bringing down the shields right as a massive space battle breaks out overhead, which could devastate the planet's surface.
* ''Literature/TheSherlockHolmesStoriesOfEdwardDHoch'': In "The Christmas Client", Holmes thwarts a plan by Moriarty to tunnel under the street from a building opposite into the Bank of England.

* In a ''Series/HogansHeroes'' episode, Hogan had to go through The Convenient ''House'' Next Door to get to a bank. He distracts the owner of the house by sweet-talking her and playing Hitler's speeches ''reeeallly'' loud on the radio so Carter can use the jackhammer in the next room.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' plays on this, with the owner of a pet store that was broken into stating that he's behind a bank. [[spoiler:In reality, the pet store was a front for a diamond smuggling operation, and was the thieves' target the whole time.]]
%%* Has happened in ''Series/{{Hustle}}''.
* In an episode of ''Series/BurnNotice'', Michael and Jesse gain access to a bank by breaking into the much less heavily protected law office upstairs and tunnel through the conference room floor into the vault.

* In the ''Series/{{Leonardo}}'' episode "Diabolical Acts", strolling players erect a temporary stage outside the Medicis' bank to put on a play celebrating Lorenzo de'Medici's engagement. It's actually a ruse to break into the vault from beneath the stage.
* ''Series/{{Salamander}}'' begins with an ordinary street scene in Brussels, of roadworkers setting up one of those stripey modesty tents over a manhole. This is their lead-in to tunneling into the vault of the next-door bank via the sewage system.
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': "[[Recap/CSINYS01E07 Rain]]" centers around a bank robbery. The investigation reveals that the perps had drilled a hole beneath the crash bar on the back door of the adjacent, empty storefront, used an umbrella to pry it open, camped out until closing time and broke through the wall, then used explosives to open the safe deposit boxes. Danny comments on the flimsiness of the metal the vault is constructed of, saying he has the same stuff on the front of his dishwasher.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/ChalkZone'' has the criminals attempt this kind of heist. However, the wall they're breaking through is a chalk surface, and the gang learned of the plan beforehand. HilarityEnsues.

* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': In "Bob Fires the Kids" Bob hires Mickey, the bank robber from "Bob Day Afternoon", to work at the restaurant. Turns out he was plotting to tunnel into the bank from Bob's basement.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' involves the Beagle Boys setting up an ice cream stand next to Scrooge [=McDuck's=] money bin. [[CutLexLuthorACheck They're pretty good at selling ice cream]] and consider turning legit but ultimately try to rob the place anyway.

* ''Film/TheLadykillers2004'' has a group of criminals posing as musicians who practice in the cellar of a boarding house, while tunnelling from the cellar to a vault they intend to rob. (In [[Film/TheLadykillers1955 the 1955 original]], the robbery is a straight ArmedBlag, and the boarding house is just where they meet to plot the job beforehand and regroup afterwards.)
* ''Film/TheBankJob'' plays with the trope a bit, as their cover for the tunnelling operation is building contractors doing some renovation work on an empty property. [[spoiler: It also works rather well, though things go rather badly wrong ''after'' they pull off the heist.]]

* In the French film ''Film/{{Rififi}}'', criminals rent the office above a jewellery store and tunnel in through the ceiling.

** "Mr. Monk And The Actor" played with this: A man breaks into a jewellery shop by smashing through the wall of the neighboring restaurant, [[spoiler: but the real point of this was to destroy that particular wall. The restaurant employed artists to sketch everyone who ate there and one such sketch depicted the man with the episode's murder victim shortly before he killed her.]]