The Bartleys' recollection of the two stars are vague--they were too busy running the business.

Besides, the Bartley's would lose a lot of time if they made star-gazing a common practice. Other famous dinners include Stephen King, Jackie Kennedy, Ted Koppel, Jimmy Breslin and Norman Mailer '43.

Joe figures that his restaurant has always drawn an eclectic crowd--like Dylan, Baez and other countercultural figures--because of its unusual atmosphere.

"I think it was the informality of the whole thing," he says. "It was like their home. You didn't have to be dressed to the hilt."

"Then, they took to me and Mrs. Bartley like pa and ma away from home."

Joe says that sort of feeling is harder to come by these days with a Square that is busier, more developed and more commercial.

"People in general are more hurried." Joan agrees. "There's probably more of a rushed feeling to the Square. It used to be more of a student's Square," she says.

"[Harvard Square] needs to retain something of its old character," Epps says, "and Bartley's is one of the few places which represents that now."

The Cambridge City Council--with its restrictions on franchises--is on the side of places like Bartley's, even as McDonald's slips under the iron curtain into Russia and Eastern Europe.

And that is a large source of comfort for Joe and Joan Bartley.

"I'll sound like sour grapes, but I think that's what has kept the Square different," Joe says. If franchises ever found their way into Harvard Square, he says, "it'd get to be a neon jungle."

In this presidential campaign season, words like change and reform have taken on a sort of mystical quality for disenchanted voters. But in Joe Bartley's world of burgers, rings and regular customers, the status quo seems just fine.

"I had a fella in here Saturday," Bartley says of a first time customer. "He said, 'Never franchise this place.' I said, 'I won't.'''

And Joe Bartley likes to tell of a Zaggart restaurant review. His favorite line. "I hope the place never changes."

"I think that's been the secret--it hasn't changed," Joe says. "It's kept its identity that people have liked over the years.