For years, city dwellers walking and driving past The Lido’s stylish old storefront on East Broadway have wondered just what was behind the perennially closed glass door.

Now, we finally have an answer.

Hidden among the retro furniture and 1950s-era electronics, the piles of mildewed clothes, rat droppings and a mountain of rusted tuna and salmon cans, was a treasure no one could have anticipated: $400,000 in Canadian bank notes circa 1930.

The money was uncovered earlier this year following the death of the building’s owner, an elderly German woman who lived in a small apartment above The Lido shop — at 518 East Broadway, just east of Main Street — for decades.

A cleanup crew hired to clear out the place — which operated sporadically as a deli and general store before closing for good more than a decade ago — found $950 in old $100 and $50 notes hidden under a rug.

But it was the caretaker who made the greatest discovery, stumbling on a bag containing a whopping $400,000 stuffed inside a bedroom closet.

“It was pretty amazing,” said Brendan Fuss, a driver with 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

Crews spent five days at the site removing enough furniture and garbage to fill 10 truckloads.

Inside, Fuss said, was “like a time warp.”

“There were some crazy retro things in there … nothing modern at all,” Fuss said.

Fuss said the banknotes found under the rug were so antiquated the young clean-up crew thought they were fake.

“They thought it was play money from a Milton Bradley game board. They were almost ready to bag it up and toss it in the garbage,” he said.

Fuss said the money was turned over to a chartered accountant working on behalf of the elderly woman’s family.

Also found in the house was a suitcase containing old German passports dating to the 1940s and ’50s, and a remarkable 15 cubic yards of rusted food tins — evidence of The Lido’s working history, though few in Vancouver can recall ever seeing the shop open for business.

“In its heyday, I think it was a specialty goods store,” said Craig Sexton, 1-800-GOT-JUNK’s general manager, who recalled visiting the store once in the early 1990s.

Vancouver coin dealer Brian Grant Duff called The Lido discovery an “incredible find,” adding that the recovered money could be worth as much as double its face value depending on the condition of the notes.

“The family,” Duff said, “should definitely check them with a reputable dealer before taking them to the bank.”

For another blogger’s memories of The Lido – http://www.vancouveriste.com/2008/07/09/the-mysterious-lido/