Harvest Restaurant, Brattle Street Fixture, Closes Doors

After nearly 25 years of serving the Cambridge community, the Harvest Restaurant shut its doors for good on Wednesday.

The closing adds to a growing list of restaurants-many of them Harvard Square fixtures-that are leaving the area.

In recent months, One Potato-Two Potato closed its Mass. Ave. eatery, and California Pizza Kitchen closed its Eliot Street branch. Come late October, The Tasty will be a memory as well.

California Pizza Kitchen will be replaced by TGI Friday's, and Grafton Street replaced One Potato-Two Potato.

Harvest owners Patrick Rowe and Jane Thompson have filed for bankruptcy, and the location at 44 Brattle St. is for sale, according to Richard Scali, executive officer of the Cambridge License Commission.

Rowe wrote in a full-length memo taped to the window of the Harvest that the restaurant was "a place of great memories, friendships and passings."

The restaurant featured "an eclectic New American regional cuisine," according to the Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard.

"I went for drinks a couple of times, and I've gotten sandwiches there," said Jan E. Goldthwait, a desk associate at Ann Taylor, a clothing store next to the restaurant. "It wasn't always crowded like some places around here. You weren't standing there, packed like sardines."

Other employees at stores along Brattle Street said they regretted the current trend of restaurant-closings around the Square.

"I'm sorry to see it go," said Kathleen, a salesperson at the Crate & Barrel who would only provide her first name. "I just hope some restaurant takes its place."

All of the area merchants interviewed said they recommended the Harvest to both friends and customers.

Rowe also owned The Noodle Bar, a restaurant in Boston that went out of business approximately three months ago, according to the Boston License Board.

An employee who worked for the Harvest in the 1980s, and would describe herself only as a long-time Cambridge resident, called the closing "a terrible loss."

She said "a whole alumni group" of former Harvest employees like herself who have moved on to other jobs continue to be good friends.

"There are artists and writers...we've gotten to know each other," she said

Rowe also owned The Noodle Bar, a restaurant in Boston that went out of business approximately three months ago, according to the Boston License Board.

An employee who worked for the Harvest in the 1980s, and would describe herself only as a long-time Cambridge resident, called the closing "a terrible loss."

She said "a whole alumni group" of former Harvest employees like herself who have moved on to other jobs continue to be good friends.

"There are artists and writers...we've gotten to know each other," she said