Harvard students who enjoyed the good humor and delicious burgers of Charles Coney, a former Tasty employee, will now have to travel outside the Square to find him.

Yesterday, Coney worked his first day for Sebastian's a restaurant in the Harvard Medical Center operated by Harvard Dining Services (HDS).

Coney described his first day as a Harvard employee as a vast departure from his experience at the Tasty.

"[Sebastian's] is a busy place. It's nothing like the Tasty," Coney says. "This place has eight or nine cooks. It's a totally different experience."

Before becoming a Harvard employee, Coney had worked for 23 years as a cook at the Tasty, a 24-hour restaurant in Harvard Square which closed recently when its building was shut down for renovations by Cambridge Savings Bank.

At the Tasty, Coney was well known for his good-natured humor and his tendency to poke fun at customers, but he says he toned down the jokes for his new job.

"You can't be too funny your first day," Coney says. "They got to learn who I am [and learn] to accept me."

Shortly before the Tasty closed, Coney had no other job lined up and worried that he would be out of work.

"One day a lawyer came into the Tasty," Coney says. "We've been knowing each other for 20 years. He came into the Tasty a couple of days before the Tasty closed and asked me what I would be doing." Coney replied that he did not have a job.

According to Coney, the next day a lady from the Harvard Employment Office came into the Tasty and said, "Charles, you can work for us any day; you're a history of Harvard Square."

HDS director Ted A. Mayer says that HDS actively recruited Coney.

"When we knew the Tasty was closing we went over there and we urged Charles to apply," Mayer says. "We knew he had a very good reputation."

Mayer says that Coney was in no way favored in the selection process as a result of his reputation, but he is delighted that Coney decided to apply for a job with HDS.

"He'll do a great job and he'll fit right in along with all of our other wonderful...staff members," Mayer says. "I think it's nice that Harvard has the opportunity to do that for one of our community members."

Coney fondly remembers his many years at the Tasty.