History Main / TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday

* ''From Beyond the Grave'', a 1973 episodic horror film from Amicus "I want to be Hammer" Productions, similar in structure to the more popular ''Dr. Terror''. The shop keeper (Creator/PeterCushing) sells cursed antiques to four different customers, all of whom end dead before they could return them. [[spoiler:Okay, one of them survives; I won't say who]]. In the final scene, Cushing breaks the fourth wall and attempts to sell something to the audience; the camera escapes and the shop door closes.

* Hikari Photo Studio in ''KamenRiderDecade'' is an odd example, since it's also the main characters' home and the hub of their inter-dimensional travel. It also seems to replace an existing shop as long as it's in any given world, as evidenced by the brief RunningGag of natives entering, looking around, and asking "Wasn't this a coffee shop?"

* Creator/FritzLeiber set one of his ''FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser'' novellas in a Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday, called the Bazaar of the Bizarre. It's a shop set up by an extra-dinensional being.

* The eponymous pet shop in ''PetShopOfHorrors'' tends to stay in one place a bit longer than most of the listed examples, but still has the ability to vanish mysteriously overnight, and fits the trope precisely in most other ways.

** ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'' also [[DiscussedTrope discusses]] several alternate theories about the phenomenon. For example, one explanation is that a race of highly advanced alien merchants learned to escape the heat death of their universe through dimension traveling technology.

* Played with in the WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic episode "Magic Duel" and the shop where Trixie acquires the Alicorn Amulet. The shopkeeper certainly fits the trope, as do the curios of the shop.

* Subject of the novel ''NeedfulThings'' by Creator/StephenKing. Lightly subverted in that the building itself ''was'' there yesterday and will be there tomorrow: it's run as a perfectly normal small town curio store, complete with "coming soon" signs before the grand opening and regular business hours. ''(Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment.)'' Less suspicious that way.

* This trope is a rather popular concept among branching RoundRobin writers. Two of the largest interactive branching round robins, the Anime Addventure and the Unending BE Addventure (both contain material that is {{NSFW}}, especially the latter; BE stands for BreastExpansion), even have some storyline threads (often involving [[RanmaOneHalf Ranma 1/2]] characters, appropriately enough, the anime addventure has a much higher proportion of relatively normal action/adventure or non sex-related storylines) where there's an an entire ''street'' filled with all manner of different Little Shops That Weren't There Yesterday, usually including SpellsRUs. And sometimes [[OhCrap Stephen King's Needful Things too.]]

* In the film version of ''NeedfulThings'', the proprietor turns out to be the devil.

* ''ABitOfFryAndLaurie'' has a little roadside flower stand that wasn't there yesterday. Its owner is mysteriously capable of discerning that it's evening, ''even though he's not wearing a watch''.

* Happens in ''TheRealHustle'' and it often works like this. Customers find a brand new phone store has opened selling phones extremely cheapy; but the catch is that the store doesn't keep the phones so it'll take a day or two for the phone to turn up, you still need to pay upfront but it's extremely cheap...even cheaper if you pay via card. Of course by the time they come back to the shop it's gone and if they were unfortunate to use their card it's been cloned.

* HarlanEllison attempts to explain the phenomenon of the mysterious shop in his 1977 short story "Shoppe Keeper".

* The 1915 Creator/LordDunsany short story ''The Bureau d'Echange de Maux'' features a little shop in Paris where men may exchange whatever "evil" or burden they feel they have for twenty francs. Once a trade is made, a client will never find the Bureau again.
* Appears in the short science fiction story ''Doodad'' by Ray Bradbury, in which a man on the run from TheMafia or equivalent helps a man who turns out to be a shopkeeper of such a shop: it sells "gadgets, gimmicks, doodads, doohingeys" and so on, which are composite imaginary tools capable of doing anything that any item ever described by that name can do.

* A sort of science-fiction variation on the theme was taken in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Dreams ''Impossible Dreams'']] by Tim Pratt, in which a Movie buff discovers a Video/DVD store in another reality where differing history has led [[DifferentWorldDifferentMovies to different movies]] (''The Magnificent Ambersons'' is available in its uncut form, but ''Film/CitizenKane'' is a lost film, there was only one ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' movie and it starred TomSelleck, there is a big-time actress who doesn't exist in our world, etc.); in an interesting subversion, everything he can get out of the store is useless due to interdimensional regional DVD differences and such. Oh, and only nickels are legal currency in both worlds. And in a further twist [[spoiler: the movie-buff store clerk finds our reality, with ''its'' different media, an enticing alternate universe]].

* WalterTheWeremouse features: An old lady, a secret reading room in a library, some strange phone cards, an eleven key on payphones, and some strange cheese, all of which appear only under very specific circumstances. The old lady is at the center of it all, and she eventually turns out to be the daughter of a renowned supernatural expert, and terrible procrastinator; she's the daughter he never got around to having, the reading room is full of books he never got around to writing, and in fact he never got around to becoming renowned or even a supernatural expert. She appears to people who make up the dregs of society, but nonetheless have the potential to be something much more if only they were able to get around to it, and gives them the means to get around to it.
* A short story from an old issue Isaac Asmov's Science Fiction that went something like: The protagonist - a dentist - noticed a new donut shop on the way to work and bought some. He noticed that when he dunked them in milk (his personal donut-eating technique) they sucked all the milk into the hole with incredible force. After some examination he determined that they were mobius donuts, with a half-twist in them. With a little experimentation with some extracted teeth he had in his office, he realized they really, ''really'' liked to "eat" calcium and he considered what would have happened if he had taken a bite. He went back to the store and jammed two donuts together whereupon the store disappeared fairly spectacularly.
* Creator/HPLovecraft's ''The Music of Erich Zann'' features a variation of this trope: the protagonist is never able to find the ''street'' he lived by ever again, after the events of the story, despite of the fact that he had a normal landlord, and the street had many other inhabitants, as well.

* GrailInTheGarbage

* In the ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' episode 'The Best Burger In New York', in which Marshall finds a mysterious restaurant that serves, well, the best burger in New York, only to mysteriously disappear when he tries to find it again. He's not the only one; even Regis Philbin has been trying to find the joint.

* ''Spell My Name with an S'' is the fortune teller version of this. Subverted in that we learn about the [[spoiler:SufficientlyAdvancedAliens who are the]] reason for it.

* Pike Place Market in UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}} has a section designed for rummage sales, and another section for itinerant vendors ("day stalls"). The labrynthine architecture of the Market also lends itself to having shops and stores that are easy to miss, especially in the "Down Under" section that specializes in curios.

* BazaarOfTheBizarre: Another place to get your esoteric shopping done.

* RecurringTraveller
* TravelingLandmass

!!Examples

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* A sort of science-fiction variation on the theme was taken in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Dreams ''Impossible Dreams'']] by Tim Pratt, in which a Movie buff discovers a Video/DVD store in another reality where differing history has led to different movies (''The Magnificent Ambersons'' is available in its uncut form, but ''Film/CitizenKane'' is a lost film, there was only one ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' movie and it starred TomSelleck, there is a big-time actress who doesn't exist in our world, etc.); in an interesting subversion, everything he can get out of the store is useless due to interdimensional regional DVD differences and such. Oh, and only nickels are legal currency in both worlds.

** One of the cons actually ''relied'' on the mark knowing this. Some guy on the phone talks about this valuable plate he found at this booth in the flea market, except he didn't have enough money to buy it. So he describes the plate and asks the friend he's talking to to bring some money and buy the plate. The mark overhears the conversation, and goes to buy the plates themselves. The plates, of course, are worthless, but the con wouldn't work if the mark knew the booth would likely be gone by the next day.

* The villains in the first season of ''Manga/SailorMoon'' opened a series of shops as fronts to steal the LifeEnergy that they needed for their EvilPlan.
** Also used by the villains in the second arc of the second season.
** Palla Palla created a dentist clinic in an episode of the fourth season.