Customers and restauranteurs alike sayuniqueness is the key to success in the Square.

"To be successful in an economic sense, itneeds to be different from the others," saysGerard Byrne, an English priest who has beenliving in Cambridge for a year, while eating lunchat the Greenhouse.

"In a setting like this, where people eat out alot, you can get used to a restaurant veryquickly," he says.

"Everybody is looking for something different,"James Miller says. "It was easy to get people topay attention to us because we represented [such]a variation," with patrons selecting meats andvegetables to be grilled in front of them.

Trost attributes this search for the unique tothe college town atmosphere.

"People in Harvard Square are looking fordifferent things," she says. "They have a veryeducated palate and most are highly educated ingeneral. The food can be simple, but it has to beunique and be good."

Still the One

And it is not only the new restaurants whichcarve out niches for themselves.

Harvard Square fixtures, too, say they arechanging with the times.

Charlie's Kitchen has added frappes to themenu; Grendel's Den has brought back cheesefondue.

"It takes constant attention by the owners,"says Sue Kuelzer, the co-owner of Grendel's."Somebody has to be there all the time and makesure it's keeping up with what styles are and whattastes are."

Jaap Overgagg, the general manager of the40-year-old Charlie's Kitchen, says the diner hasdone the same, "changing the menu to what ourcustomers want."

And on a recent sunny afternoon, residents saidit was the old-time joints that still capturedtheir hearts--and tastebuds.

"We don't go out to restaurants very much inHarvard Square," says Cambridgeport residentTimothy E. Frey, rocking a baby carriage. "But wewill specifically come to Harvard Square to go torestaurants with Harvard Square flavor," like thenow-defunct Wursthaus or Charlie's Kitchen.

Writer Diane L. Rezendes, born and raised inCambridge but now living in Mountain View, Calif.,agrees.