Mary-Lynne has been working at the Comox since 1984

She’s got a stack of greeting cards from regulars, including a poem, and anote from a Blue Rodeo legend that’s signed: “Sorry Imissed you, next time, love Jim Cuddy”— proof that server MaryLynne MacGowan has been charming regulars at the West End’s Comox Street Long Bar since it opened 33 years ago. In a city that says goodbye to its favourite watering holes more often than not (we miss you, DV8), over three decades of an iron-clad memory and “not putting up with shit” needs celebrating—and her legions of fans truly adore her. “Two gay guys, older, they’ve been coming for years. They said, ‘How are we going to live without you? Because if ever we came into money, you’d be the ’rst person we’d want to give some to,’” she says. “I said, ‘You could have just asked me. I would have given you my number.’” The Comox is closing this year, and MacGowan is ’guring out her next adventure. “I never thought that I would live my life to be a waitress,” she says. “But it’s been a really good life. A very good life.”