Around New England

Mr. Bartley’s Founder Was ‘Mayor of Harvard Square’

March 22, 2018

Harvard Square has steadily lost non-chain businesses in recent years, but Mr. Bartley’s Gourmet Burgers on Massachusetts Avenue still often has a line out the door.

Joseph C. Bartley, who founded the restaurant in 1960, died earlier this month at age 87.

Bartley, who grew up in North Andover, left school in ninth grade to work in a mill to help support his family but left when he couldn’t stand it anymore, according to The Harvard Crimson.

He and his wife eventually put together $10,000 and took over a convenience store in Harvard Square with a small grill. He took a chance on what was then a novelty — gourmet hamburgers — and built it into a thriving business that supported, eventually, five children.

“We always say he started life from way behind the goalpost and made it past the other end with not a lot of help besides my mother,” Bartley’s son, Bill Bartley, told The Harvard Crimson.

Bartley also adorned the restaurant’s walls with funny images and sayings and named menu items after politicians.

A serious Catholic, he attended Mass every day, closed his business on Sundays, “and stubbornly served up Lent specials even when they didn’t sell very well,” according to The Harvard Crimson.

Another business owner in the Square, Christos Soillis, recalled that when he was a struggling recent immigrant Bartley sometimes let him eat free of charge.

Paul Lee, who manages The Hong Kong Restaurant next door and grew up with the Bartley children, called Bartley “the mayor of Harvard Square.”

“He was a character. He always had a good story for you,” Lee told the Crimson.

Bartley died March 5.