"Kids will come in here and put their feet up on the chair. That's been the secret--it never went high fallutin;"

Almost as varied as Bartley's ultra-diversified menu is its clientele. "I get all types--students, businessmen, older people," says Joe Bartley. "We get the melting pot, that's what's fascinating about it."

Tourists, too, know of the Harvard Square legend. "I get people in here from Montana who'll take onion rings home with them," Joe says.

Bartley's regulars include Harvard faculty members and administrators. Epps, Joan Bartley says, "has been around from when we first put in tables."

"They seem to be able to produce my favorite sandwich," Epps says, "which is the bacon cheeseburger: very well done--burned--heavy on the pickles."

Students also see Bartleys' as an endangered species.

"It's one of the few things in the Square that hasn't become completely generic--this and Elise's," says Steven D. Nelson, a second year graduate student in fine arts.

Although students inevitably graduate and move on, Joe says, they often come back.

"People return who graduated more than 25 years ago, with their kids. I always get a real kick out of that," he says.

Diners leaving Bartley's, pass a sign over the doorway which says, "Thank You/31 Years."

Come February, it'll be thirty two years. And counting.