How have I missed this thread?? My Harvard Sq years were 82-85. Eateries I remember (fondly and not so much) include Mr & Mrs Bartley’s Burger Cottage (the hollandaise burger with a massive pile of onion strings), Elsie’s (Elsieburger), Grendel’s Den (mostly because it was a party to a famous court case), Ferdinand’s (mostly for being mentioned in One-L), Cahaly’s, Charlie’s for the double cheeseburger plate, the Hong Kong (for bowls not food), a couple other very mediocre chinese places), all the eateries in the Garage such as Baby Watson, Warburton’s for muffins, the breakfast place next to Warburton’s, Three Aces up Mass Ave a bit (AKA Three Greases), Changsho and another Charlie’s further up Mass Ave, the big Au Bon Pain…
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This is the best thread. I was haunting the Square on and off from about 1985, through my MIT years 87-91 then working at Widener 91-94. And did a lot of eating around trips to Newbury, In Your Ear, Out of Town, the Coop… LOL. So many fantastic memories and a bit sad to remember places long gone. Thank you everyone 
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I just snorted cos at college we would either say Au Bon Pain with obnoxiously overdone French accents or call it The Good Pain 
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We called it “Bone pain” and when they were going through a huge expansion…at one point I think there may have been 3 in Harvard Square alone…it became “Bone pain is metastasizing.”
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Come on, that was funny.
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i finally remembered the name of the place on mount auburn street across from the garage — skewers. — where i used to grab a bite beofre my classes at harvard extension.
as the name suggests, it was middle eastern, but they also made a great cheeseburger.
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We always wondered what happened to the 4th ace?
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As I recall (1973-1977), Three Aces was great for cheap drinks (this was when drinking age was 18) and open late at night. Food was hideous. I can’t remember what replaced it. The earliest iteration of Grafton St, perhaps?
It was torn down for a new construction, which now has a Stoked Pizza on the ground level.
Pizza was a tad greasy. I thought their toasted subs we quite good.
