Have you launched a non-unique business? Tell us about your experience

Lately I've been thinking about launching businesses that aren't anything special in their own right and that don't require some kind of eureka moment to discover the concept. Clearly that's nothing new: people have been running bars, restaurants, movie theaters, and mattress stores for decades and each iteration doesn't typically bring any major new improvement along with it.

Do any of you have experience starting and running a business that isn't necessarily the next big thing? Software based or not, I'm interested to learn about your experience. What was the business? What was good and bad about it? Why and how did you succeed or fail?

I'm personally more interested in software startups, but I believe you can learn something from anything, so please share away!