Bad Guy Bar

"Reg: Welcome to the Salty Spitoon. How tough are ya?

Tough Guy: How tough am I? How tough am I? I had a bowl of nails for breakfast this mornin'!

Reg: Yea-hah, so?

Tough Guy: Without any milk."

- SpongeBob SquarePants

This is the place where bad guys hang out to plot their nefarious deeds. It is a bar. If it's not dingy and/or a Bikini Bar, it is whatever the latest incarnation of "nightclub" looks like - a throng of people dancing in ways that resemble an orgy - the Coolest Club Ever, because as we all know, Evil Is Cool. The principal bar in any self-respecting Wretched Hive will naturally be of this kind. There is usually a pool table.

If the heroes wander into such a seedy dive, chances are that a Bar Brawl will break out when the local thugs attempt to intimidate the newcomers.

In modern times, this is where you will find Orcus On His Throne — a modern-day royal court, complete with bodyguards and a crowd of lessers cheapening themselves for their master's amusement.

Contrast of course Good Guy Bar, where heroes (or sometimes heroes and villains) hang out. A Den of Iniquity is a comparable setting that's hidden from the public.

Anime & Manga

 * The Devil's Nest Bar in Fullmetal Alchemist.
 * Natsuki from Mai-HiME frequents such a bar to gather information on shady dealings.
 * Nagi visits one in Mai-Otome to participate in shady dealings, especially when one John Smith is concerned.
 * In Sailor Moon SuperS, the fourth season, the Amazon Trio had their own bar in the Dead Moon Circus. A bartender was never seen nor was any furniture other then the bar itself (The background being empty blackness). The only way viewers knew it was at the circus was because the Circus's Logo was seen in some shots.
 * The Yellow Flag bar in Black Lagoon. It isn't any noticeably worse than the rest of Roanapur, but it is considered neutral territory by the gangs of the city. It still manages to be blown apart on a semi-regular basis.
 * The Mascot Village in Dai Mahou Touge has one of these. It's where Punie first meets Paya-tan.
 * Star Driver has a bar where Vanishing Age hang out and play darts.
 * One Piece:
 * Spider's Cafe.
 * Blueno's bar might also count.
 * So would that one un-named one in Mock Town where Luffy meets Blackbeard and Bellemy.
 * A digital bar in Yureka is where professional, specialized murderers just seem to hang out, along with shady, superpowerful businesspeople, conveniently allowing them to conduct deals with each other, and with our questionably motivated protagonists every now and then.

Comic Books

 * The Bar With No Name, in Medina County, Ohio (of the Marvel Universe) — infamously the location where the vigilante Scourge of the Underworld disguised himself as the bartender to assassinate 18 supervillains (who had ironically gathered there to discuss how to deal with all the recent Scourge murders). Marvel's Bar With No Name has multiple branches; there's another one operating in New York City.
 * This story was reused in an issue of Punisher: War Journal. A group of villains gather at the New York branch to honor Stilt-Man, a supervillain who the Punisher had killed in issue #1 of the series.
 * Regular Mooks go to Josie's.
 * A few issues of DC's Justice League of America International featured a downstairs dive called The Dark Side, that appeared to cater primarily to second-, third-, and no-tier baddies. It also featured a wallboard listing which villains were active, which were in prison, and which were sidelined or missing for various reasons.
 * Later, much of the JLI team would re-unite as the Superbuddies and discover their new neighbor, former supervillain Richard "Dick" Hertz (alias Blackguard) was starting a bar next door. While his place (also called the Dark Side) wouldn't actively encourage villainous patrons, his partner (our old buddy Guy Gardner) advised it's best to let them come in should they decide to, seeing as how this is such a litigious society and all.
 * In Watchmen, Rorschach tends to visit a bar filled with seedy lowlives whenever he needs info on criminals. This basically for him means beating people up until they give him a lead or at least until he decides they know nothing. Needless to say, the locals are all scared shitless by him.
 * Except that one guy. Shame about his fingers.
 * In the Under the Hood fake-documentary feature that was released with the Tales of the Black Freighter, there's a snippet of an interview with the bartender of a bar that Rorschach frequents. He defends his customers and condemns Rorschach. Ironic, considering his patrons are criminals and Rorschach is the so-called hero. Also, within the Black Freighter mini-continuity, there is a pub where pirates congregate.
 * By sheer statistics it's unlikely that more than a small percentage of the bar's patrons are actual criminals, but Rorschach isn't interested in whose fingers he breaks in such a place.
 * Deadpool goes to one of these for information. Rather than threatening the patrons, he threatens the booze.
 * Are you referring to The Hellhouse?
 * He also goes to the Bar With No Name mentioned above.
 * The Penguin's place of business tends to be this for the Mafia types. Doesn't always work out. Two Face: Year One had the freaks take it over, until the SWAT team invaded, killing all the expendable lackeys. And one penguin. The bird one, not the human one.
 * Kingdom Come, where heroes and villains tend to switch sides just for the hell of it, has an underground bar where many hang out.
 * Rorschach of Watchmen fame makes a cameo in a couple of panels. In one panel he's breaking Brother Power's fingers.
 * Every Bar in Gotham City.
 * One story even said that Batman pays to keep several of them open just so he can have places to overhear information.
 * There is one located in the Savage Dragon version of Chicago. It's name is never given but it is a popular hangout for supervillains.

Films
"Ted Striker: I was in the Air Force, stationed in Drambuie, off the Barbary Coast. I used to hang out at the Magumba Bar. It was a rough place. The seediest dive on the wharf, populated with every reject and cut-throat from Bombay to Calcutta. It was worse than Detroit."
 * Papa Midnite's bar in Constantine. According to Chaz Kramer it's a "haven for those who rise and fall" - i.e. half-breed demons and angels.
 * The Oro Verde and Tarasco Bars from Desperado, both of which were hangouts for members of Bucho's gang, and both of which were cleaned out in bloody fashion by the Mariachi.
 * The Neo-Nazi bar in The Hebrew Hammer. Strangely enough, they do have an old bottle of Manischewitz lying around.
 * In Star Wars, the Mos Eisley Cantina is perhaps the trope's most famous example. The Prequels also had Obi-Wan and Anakin enter a seedy bar in the lower levels of Coruscant.
 * Parodied in turn on two levels - the bar in the tin can, and the cantina scene involving Hopper and his gang in A Bugs Life
 * On a larger scale the moon of Nar Shadda (orbiting Nal Hutta, the Hutt's homeworld) has been described is pretty much a massive bad guy bar. Han Solo described the place as what Coruscant would look like if you took the top 100 layers off of the city-planet.
 * Airplane! The Magumba Bar, featuring fighting Girl Scouts and disco dancing.

"Kermit: Rough place, huh?
 * Shadow Company, the villains of Lethal Weapon, hang out in a bar and do business there.
 * Blackheart invades and cleans out a bar of rough "Hell's Angels" bikers in Ghost Rider so he can discuss his master plan with the Hidden—why he needed to do it there, it's not clear.
 * He also missed a chance for a snarky theological retort to "Angels only".
 * Ye Olde Benbow Taverne in Batman the Movie (1966). Lair of combative sailors, pirates and the United Underworld organization (Catwoman, the Joker, the Penguin and the Riddler).
 * The Mexican bar in Three Amigos, filled with heavily armed banditos who like to pick fights with newcomers.
 * The Korova Milk Bar in A Clockwork Orange. Alex and his droogs always assemble at the bar to "sharpen themselves up" for a night of ultraviolence by sipping milk laced with narcotics. The decor of the bar is stark black and white, with all furniture composed of white statues of contorted, naked women, some of which dispense the spiked milk. It's never firmly established whether the other patrons of the bar are as violent as Alex's gang, though it seems unlikely: the woman singing Ode to Joy and her companions appear shocked when Alex strikes Dim for mocking her, and a bit flustered when he nods to them. All in all, it seems more of a trendy (or what would have been called "mod" at the time the movie was released) scene bar where (some) bad guys happen to hang out.
 * In Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, there is a bar called the "Faux Ghost" which Scooby and Shaggy visit which seems almost dedicated to the hatred of Scooby and the gang.
 * The biker gang "Satan's Helpers" has taken up residence in the bar in Pee Wees Big Adventure. Subverted when Pee Wee.
 * In A Bronx Tale, a biker gang tries to break up a bar belonging to the neighborhood mob boss and are given a No Holds Barred Beatdown in a scene that makes a significant impression on the teenage main character.
 * In The Matrix Revolutions, the Merovingian and his wife are lounging at Club Hel -- so that Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph have to "fight their way through Hell" to rescue Neo.
 * The El Sleazo Cafe from The Muppet Movie has some elements of this. It's full of ill-tempered and unsavory-looking characters, and Kermit's arrival coincides with a man getting thrown out through the front door.

Man: That's the toughest, meanest, filthiest pest-hole on the face of the Earth!

Kermit: Well, why not complain to the owner?

Man: I am the owner."


 * In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the (Ahnold)T-800 walks into the Bad Guy Bar naked in the beginning of the film. He leaves with clothing, cool transportation and a shotgun.
 * In The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, The Garbage Pail Kids get into a barfight in a bar literally titled The Toughest Bar in the World
 * Eddie Izzard's Death Star Canteen joke revolves around this trope.
 * Subverted in Wild Hogs where the bar is actually owned by the Fuegos biker gang, and is rebuilt by a makeover show during the final credits
 * In "The Princess and the Pirate" Bob Hope finds himself in a local bar, in a pirate town, so dangerous that he sees a man being killed because his shadow falls on someone. The killer then takes a liking to him and invites to drink a HUGE pitcher of ale - OR ELSE! Of course, this is a town where no one stops a man from dumping his victim's body in the harbor because "He has a permit" and his landlady tells him that, yes, there used to be a competing hotel but it burned down "suspicious like" while lighting her pipe with a comically oversized match.

Literature

 * The bar where Jim Taggart, Balph Eubank, Wesley Mouch and the other villains hang out in Atlas Shrugged. It's designed to look like it's underground but is actually on top of a skyscraper. The basement design is symbolic of the fact that despite their wealth and power, they cannot aspire to greatness, they have to drag it down to their pathetic level. It's established that the drinks are rubbish so they only drink there because it's a fashionable place, which shows that they are comformists. Still, were it not for the bad drinks and the even worse company, you have to admit, it would be a pretty cool place to be. It looks underground, but it's not!
 * Biers in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, except that Pratchett's undead and lycanthropes don't so much prey on helpless humans as hold night jobs and discuss flea shampoos. A genuine villain bar (with no name) appears in Hogfather, as a dark room where people have drinks while discussing business. "The business generally involved the transfer of ownership of something from one person to another, but then, what business doesn't?" And then there's The Mended Drum, "the most reputable disreputable tavern" in Ankh-Morpork (someone with the name Uglag the Invincible would quickly be proven not to be, but a child walking in to order a glass of lemonade need fear nothing more than a clip upside the ear (and that from the child's mother upon hearing the new vocabulary)), which started out as a straight example and evolves into a rather overt parody of this kind of establishment as the book series go on and Ankh-Mopork becomes more civilized. As of Going Postal, the Bar Brawls are partly choreographed, and even has an organized points system.
 * Then there's Troll's Head, which is something like a more serious and gritty version of the Drum. To give some idea of what kind of place it is: the thing outside it that shows the bar's name is Troll's Head is not a sign, but an actual severed head of a troll. This is a reference to English pubs with names like the Turk's Head and the Saracen's Head, which acquired those names during the Crusades for similar reasons; many pubs with such names still exist, but with rather less grisly signage.
 * Pratchett references this more directly in Jingo, with The Klatchian Head. Fred Colon remembers his granddad told him his granddad saw when it was a real head, though it was shrunken even then.
 * The Old Pink Dog Bar of Han Dold City in So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, where customers are periodically murdered by a large bird and disembodied arm which live behind the bar.
 * The Korova Milk Bar in A Clockwork Orange. It's more firmly suggested in the book than the film that the bar is a popular spot for gang-bangers like Alex and his droogs. Amusingly, compared to the film it's a much more sedate-looking place, with murals of cows on the walls, no statues, and a few private curtained cubicles for people working through a really major synthemesc trip.
 * Dragaera has a subversion with Valabar's of the Taltos series, where the food is so good that while assassins and others hang out there, it is a safe zone as they wouldn't be allowed back if they committed a hit there. Five Hundred Years After has a straight example.
 * The restaurant Vlad's father owned was patronized mainly by House Jhereg, although it's unclear how many of the customers were actually part of the Organization.
 * In Soon I Will Be Invincible, superhero team The Champions visit a super-powered villain bar to squeeze the patrons for information. Later, Doctor Impossible goes another villain bar, held in a secret location that changes every so often to avoid the heroes.
 * Strangefellows. Owner and bartender Alex Morrisy will be crushed. Or maybe the opposite, since he hates the place and only hangs around in such a dive because of a family geas; his customers, alas, have no such excuse.
 * Morley's Joy House, from the Garrett PI novels, is a subversion: while it's a favored hangout for lowbrow thugs and criminals (or upscale thugs and criminals, after its makeover as The Palms), Morley Dotes is a vegetarian teetotaller and refuses to serve anything stronger than cider.
 * In Harry Potter, there is The Hog's Head, the shadiest bar of Hogsmeade. Whose owner is, incidentally, Dumbledore's brother, but no one knows that. It's implied that he passes on any information he finds to the good guys.
 * In Wicked Lovely, there is both the Crow's Nest, a mortal bar which is something of a nostalgia-fest for Seth, and the Rath and Ruins, a faerie club which much of the series revolves around (and the name of the fan forum).
 * The Forty Winks in The Manual of Detection, which is under the mortuary in the cemetery in the old port town.
 * In the Gentleman Bastard books, there are the Last Mistake in Camorr, where the Right People hang out, and the Tattered Crimson in Port Prodigal, a Wretched Hive and pirate HQ.
 * Adam-Troy Castro's Sinister Six series, a Spider-Man trilogy of novels, features the Machiavelli Club in New York City, an upper-class restaurant supposedly created by a villainous mathematician for the purposes of catering to those with a "special brand of vision". Sadly, construction was incomplete, as the Machiavelli's patrons run the gamut across continuities, companies, and universes. A short listing of its patrons include:
 * Ra's al'Ghul
 * Hans and Simon Gruber
 * Justin Hammer
 * Diedrich van Horn, a villain from the Ellery Queen mystery novels
 * The Joker
 * The Kingpin
 * Dr. Hannibal Lecter
 * Lex Luthor
 * Elijah "Mr. Glass" Price, from the movie Unbreakable.
 * Carmen Sandiego
 * Keyser Soze
 * Randolph and Mortimer. Yes that Randolph and Mortimer! Even the Gentleman takes a moment to wonder how they managed to get an invitation.
 * For those who are, say, younger than the referenced movie, that would presumably be Randolph and Mortimer Duke of Trading Places. Circa 1983.
 * Indeed; the novel even covers their Intercontinuity Crossover appearance in Coming to America. When the Gentleman remarks that last he heard, their fortunes had both been wiped out, they coyly reply that they had come into a new source of venture capital, calling it "a grant from a visiting African dignitary".
 * Their waiter is even Henry from Isaac Asimov's Black Widower mystery series (something which is a serious slander to a fine upstanding gentleman).
 * The Katorga Taverne from Boris Akunin's Death of Achilles
 * The Rhodesian in the Honor Harrington novel Torch of Freedom is notorious for being one of the baddest mercenary hideouts on the whole Mesa. Victor Cachat still manages to rather impress the local population.
 * The Sozzled Parrot in Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex.
 * The Pink Rat and The Black Ship from The Shadow novels.
 * The Dixie Pig and The Travellers' Rest from The Dark Tower series.
 * In the Knight and Rogue Series Fisk goes to a bar where most of the criminals in town like to hang out. The bartender even has a system for fetching other criminals if you need to meet up with them.

Live-Action TV
"Winston: So who's this Donnelly guy?
 * Multiple demon bars on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, including one operated by Willy the Snitch.
 * Any bar on Alias.
 * Even Power Rangers has this (of course, no villains are ever explicitly shown drinking alcoholic beverages). The Space and Lost Galaxy incarnations of the show have the Onyx Tavern, in which Mooks and Monsters of the Week from different incarnations of the show, going all the way back to the beginning, hang out. A more recent incarnation, SPD, had Piggy's. A Running Gag was the Rangers showing up to grill the proprietor for information, and the patrons immediately running for their lives.
 * The Roadhouse Bar in Twin Peaks.
 * Which has gone through a weird sort of Defictionalization as the building that was used for exterior shots was bought by new owners who turned it into a steakhouse called "The Roadhouse"
 * Supernatural has a nasty example in the episode "The Magnificent Seven". Now those guys were evil. Made a hunter chug Drano in front of his wife. Good times.
 * The series also has The Road House, technically a Good Guy Bar.
 * The BBC series Hustle has an Anti Hero bar, where its cast of delightful confidence tricksters hang out. They have never paid their tabs.
 * Subverted in Due South, twice. The first was in the pilot episode, when Ray is fishing for information on who killed Fraser's father, and is being menaced after the patrons get suspicious that he's a cop. Then Fraser kicks the door down is alternately uber-polite (weirding them out) and kick-ass violent. Plus, he's got a wolf. The second time is when a friend of Fraser's father is running from a convict he arrested with a murderous grudge. It's the same bar, Ray's being menaced again, and this time two mounties kick the door in, extract the information they want, and rescue Ray, whilst completely ignoring the two dozen guns pointing straight at them.
 * Almost every bar in the Dallas area on Walker Texas Ranger fits this trope. They're all filled with big, mean, lowlifes, and they all get their butts kicked, often literally, by Walker and his partner(s). One wonders why the bad guys never wised up.
 * No Heroics, takes place in a Good Guy Bar, but mentions a supervillain bar called the Stronghold.
 * In one Heroes episode, Adam Monroe took Hiro and Ando to one of these.
 * Marcus Cole has been known to frequent bars in the Downbelow when looking for information, typically getting it via being the only one in the room left standing. G'Kar had a similar method, come to think about it...
 * The Wire contains both variations: the Barksdale crew plotted their nefarious deeds from within Orlando's, a strip club that Avon Barksdale used as a front. Meanwhile, Blind Butchie's was a more dingy place, but where Stringer Bell, Proposition Joe, Omar Little and drug-dealing prison guard Tilghman were equally likely to patronize, and equally welcome. It became the location of choice to parley with Omar as of season two.
 * Lampshaded in Human Target:

Chance: Just a guy.

Winston: Yeah, but a bad guy. See, 'cause that's a bad guy bar, so he must be a bad guy."


 * Arguably, 'The Raven', Jeannette's vampire-bar in the TV series Forever Knight. A very dangerous place for the living, but not everybody there is necessarily evil.

Music

 * Club Villain is a song about such a place.

New Media

 * I Love Bees has Sharfie's, a pool parlor at which gangsters hang out.

Professional Wrestling

 * Back in the days when Kayfabe was taken more seriously, the Heels and Faces would stay in different hotels and drink at different bars so that no one would get the idea that they didn't actually hate each other.
 * Spin the wheel, make the deal!

Tabletop Games

 * The Cape 'n Cowl in the Freedom City Sourcebook for Mutants and Masterminds.

Videogames

 * The Undersquare in Megaman Battle Network, although it isn't usually affiliated with the Big Bad du jour. Oftentimes the thugs there will actually seem more Chaotic Neutral then truly evil, and the merchants there tend to sell powerful chips.
 * World of Warcraft, of course, has a number of neutral locations, but the one best fitting this trope has to be Booty Bay, a city run by goblin merchants and pirates. Apparently pirates who don't do anything, at that - though that's probably because protection contracts pay more. Since the gobs don't take sides and inter-faction fighting is bad for business, any attempt at Pv P is met with bouncers.
 * This used to make PvP impossible, in the days when the maximum player level was 60, they were level 67. Now, however, the maximum player level is 80... And they're still 67...
 * They were upgraded to level 77. Their main threat comes not from their damage, but from their muskets that can knock you halfway across the city in one shot. And they just love juggling you in midair.
 * There's also the Grim Guzzler, the bar of choice for Dark Iron Dwarves, which funnily enough is the only place in Blackrock Depths where they don't attack you on sight; it takes a golem starting a Bar Brawl to turn it into a battlefield.
 * In The Punisher for the PS2, Frank non-chalantly walks into a bar full of mob thugs, none of whom recognize him until he pulls his guns and kills them all. In a bizarre coincidence, a cop was hanging out at the bar but not killed because he was in the bathroom.
 * Also, Frank does not kill honest cops.
 * Mass Effect has Chora's Den, a seedy little place run by a local crime lord with brutish alien clientele and saucy alien strippers. One character remarks it often smells funny there, not unreasonably guessing that the owner hides his enemies' bodies under the centre stage.
 * And Mass Effect 2 has "AfterLife", above which the ruler of Omega Station enforces her one rule; Don't Fuck With Aria.
 * The Hanged Man tavern in Dragon Age II is probably the seediest place in Kirkwall. Unsurprisingly, all party rogues who aren't choirboys hang out there.
 * In Fallout 3 in Underworld, there's the "Ninth Circle". It is run by Ahzrukhal, a charming, yet actually a very evil ghoul. He holds contract for Charon, a servant who you can own by either paying 2000/1000 caps or doing a little "favor" for Ahzrukhal...
 * Subverted in The World Ends With You. The bad guy bar (in the sewers no less!) is actually very nice.
 * In the Raidou Kuzunoha duology, the local bathhouse fills this role for the local Yakuza expies.
 * In Grand Theft Auto IV the Lost And Damned, the Lost's clubhouse is a Bad Guy Bar and your primary save point.
 * In Grand Theft Auto IV the Lost And Damned, the Lost's clubhouse is a Bad Guy Bar and your primary save point.

Webcomics

 * Order of the Stick had this as one of its many, many taverns, but only in Origin of PCs. During the scene, Elan boldly walks in and announces the arrival of his Paladin companion. In addition to the usual assortment of pissed off criminals, there was also a Minotuar and even a DROW looking threatening. They both walk away slowly.

Web Originals

 * Tech Infantry has the Jade Flower and Emile's Pub, among others. The Rage fits the trope even more so.
 * The Emperor Napoleon's, a nightclub in New Orleans, is the command center for Baron Samedi's operations in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe.
 * The Sanctuary is a former cathedral-turned-bar in Moscow where second- and third-tier supervillains find job opportunities. Its run by The Cardinal, of the settings many Big Bads.
 * The protagonists of Pay Me Bug visit a Bad Guy Bar to get information and some cargo as a cover for their real job. They get interrupted.

Western Animation

 * The Stacked Deck Club on Batman the Animated Series, which was the setting for the episode "Almost Got 'im".
 * There is a similar bar in Central City shown in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Flash & Substance", but populated by The Flash's various enemies. Batman, Flash and Orion show up there to find out information about the attacks by the Rogues and all the patrons (including the bartender) clear out the moment they see the heroes. The only remainder is the mildly insane Trickster, the exact man they were trying to find.
 * Lately, the Penguin has opened the Iceberg Lounge, which is Gotham's Bad Guy Bar, where the rich slum for excitement and which Batman tolerates as long as Pengy provides criminal underworld info on demand as required. (After all, as long as the bad guys are just there for drinks, Penguin's not doing anything illegal...but he might hear things...)
 * The Evil Eye Club on The Tick. Newcomers and suspected heroes-in-disguise may be asked to eat a kitten to prove their evilness.
 * Used to track down the villains in The Great Mouse Detective. Of course, this is an homage to a similar scene in one of the original Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films.
 * Shrek 2 and Shrek 3 have a straight example featuring fairy tale bad guys. "The Poison Apple Bar" features Captain Hook on piano.
 * It also has signs saying "Unhappy Hour" and "We Reserve the Right to Behead Anyone."
 * The Stinger for the Grand Finale of Kim Possible shows the show's entire Rogues Gallery hanging out in one of these.
 * The entire Rogues Gallery except for Shego, strangely enough...
 * It was more of a coffee shop than a bar.
 * The Skull and Dagger in Aladdin: The Series
 * For Halloween, all of the Disney villains turn the House of Mouse into one of these with a Villain Song.
 * The Salty Spitoon in Spongebob SquarePants
 * Not to mention the Thug Tug from The Movie, which has some damn tight standards of manliness, where a bubble blown from the soap dispenser ends up starting a man-hunt.
 * The bar at the Misty Palms Oasis‌ in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * Also, the "seedy tavern" where June hangs out, drinking and beating up huge dudes between jobs.
 * The Red Lobster Inn from Pinocchio
 * The ironically named Snuggly Duckling from Tangled.
 * A subversion, in that the thugs in the bar all turn out to be somewhat nice guys with dreams of doing something with their lives besides being thugs.
 * The Spectacular Spider-Man had one owned by the Shocker, though he left the running of the place to Blackie Drago. It gets burned down in a fight between Spidey and the Molten Man.
 * An episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 had one of these named "The Secret Hideout"... advertised by huge illuminated signs and neons.
 * Subverted in Olive the Other Reindeer. The bar near the North Pole Olive stops in looking for a ride seems to be populated by criminals, but it turns out they aren't that bad. Well, except for that bunny. They even have a song about it.

Real life

 * There were bars at concentration camps where Nazis could drink and be merry after a hard day of torturing and killing people.
 * Every neighbourhood has a really rough pub where no-one who values their life ever goes!