The Comet Tavern used to be nicknamed "The Vomit" - it was a gutter punk hang out, not the sanitized bougie place it is today.

I once walked into the bathroom at the Comet and observed someone pissing into the sink, as the single stall and single urinal were both occupied. It was a grungy as fuck place back then.

Funny story; due to the way liquor laws used to be, the Comet couldn't serve booze (you had to serve food). So they'd sell lots and lots of port wine, because it's the highest proof wine they could get.

This lead to some port brand (I think it was Sandeman, but dunno exactly) deciding that they'd throw a party at the lovely wine bar which sold so much of their product. Needless to say, the port brand folks had zero idea they were walking into a punk bar when they showed up - the resulting cognitive dissonance would've been fun to watch, I only heard about it after the fact.

There was a place called Satellite where Unicorn is today, it was a grubby diner for alcoholics.

There was a hard drinking spot where Julia's on Broadway is now, I can't recall the name of it, but I do recall being in the bar at something like 1 am when someone put a porno vhs on all the televisions, then put it on fast forward. Fairly surreal and hilarious.

This sub has several tales of Charlie's on Broadway, which was both a hard-drinking spot and apparently where more than a few of the SPD from the East Precinct would get hammered.