There are a few changes in Athens from my original days of living here that still throw me. The Grill now being where Schlotsky’s was. The Last Resort now a fancy date restaurant instead of the bar where Glenn Phillips slid knees-first across the dance floor while playing electric guitar. The Georgia Theatre now a respected concert hall instead of the cheap bar and movie house called The Carafe and Draft. People not knowing I mean Gyro Wrap when I say Russo’s, its original name.

But it’s the shell of the Bluebird Café—now deserted on the corner of Clayton and Thomas streets with the unlit neon sign still outside the building and the murals visible through the windows—that stings.

The Bluebird Café was a vegetarian restaurant originally located in the ground-floor of the Morton Theatre when I was a student. Before my time, it was called the El Dorado, and several Athens musicians, including members of The B-52s, worked there. But for me, it was the home of Powerhouse Eggs—glorious scrambled eggs topped with a hearty spattering of soy sauce, a handful of nutritional yeast and globs of melted white cheddar cheese—and the homebase of my Athens life.

My first memory of the Bluebird was freshman year at UGA in the ‘80s. It was when the campus was so preppy it seemed like 90 percent of the students were in a fraternity or a sorority. Whales smiled from the fabric of women’s dresses, alligators emblazoned men’s shirts, and “add-a-bead” necklaces proclaimed wealth one golden nugget at a time. “How many add-a-beads are you wearing?” a friend once shot at a cowering girl in our dorm elevator. “That’s enough gold to feed the children of Kampuchea—forget the concert!”

My all-four-years roommate Robin and I shared a freshman dorm room in Brumby Hall. We were clean-cut, middle-class kids who missed most of the legendary concerts in town because we were in bed by 10 for early classes. But we proclaimed our GDI (“I” standing for “independent”) status with Animal House and An American Werewolf in London movie posters taped to our dorm walls, and Bruce Springsteen and Robin’s boyfriend’s endless collection of Led Zeppelin blasting from our stereo speakers.

So, we were thrilled when preppies Jenny and Kim from across the hall walked into our room one afternoon and proclaimed they had just gotten back from the worst god-awful restaurant they’d ever been to. “People there were dressed like hippies... rude... vegetarian food... art on the walls... '70s music. You guys would love this place!”

Our status as carnivores aside, it was glorious. The Bluebird Café was a restaurant from the college days of my older brothers, unaware and uncaring of the prep scene. And the food tasted as good as the place made me feel. Well, the water in plastic cups did taste of Lemon Joy dishwashing liquid, as if the dishwater was never rinsed, but the coffee was great. You also had a choice of the sides that accompanied the Powerhouse Eggs: whole-wheat toast or whole-wheat biscuits, and home fries or unbleached stone-ground yellow grits.

We went every Saturday and ordered the same thing: coffee and Powerhouse Eggs, with grits and a biscuit for me and home fries and a biscuit for Robin. I basically used the biscuit as a spoon for the apple butter that was in squirt bottles on every table. I’d break my biscuit into several small pieces so I’d have more surface area to cover and therefore more apple butter to eat.

My favorite restaurant moment of all time happened weeks later when our waitress—peasant outfit, long brown hair pulled back with a barrette, no make-up, pretty sure her name was Ruth—sauntered up to the table and asked, “The usual?” She got a double tip that day. A few weeks after that, when Robin and I got there late and had to stand in line for a table, she walked by us and said, “I went ahead and put your order in, so it should be ready when you sit down.”

Our relationship with the hip waitress was tested the next fall during a pivotal football rivalry weekend when Robin and I showed up in the most spirited and obnoxious red-and-black clothes we could find. We were already squeamishly looking down at the table when she sauntered up, crossed her arms and raised her eyebrow. “It’s Clemson!” I finally blurted. She gave it a beat before nodding and saying, “Ah. OK. The usual?”

My funniest memory was coming back from the restroom to find Robin still laughing from the look on her server’s face when he’d asked her if she’d like coffee, and she, not looking up from her newspaper, pointed at my empty chair and said, “Yes, and my friend would like some, too.”

When I was told of the Bluebird’s closing, it was with the blahness of someone who doesn’t care enough to tell you of a loved one’s passing until weeks after the funeral. The Bluebird Café was my central restaurant on every return visit to Athens since graduation, and I was crushed. When my dad asked my nephew if I’d ever taken him to the Bluebird, Steven said, “Once, and the memory of those Powerhouse Eggs still haunts me.”

I’ve since learned to make Powerhouse Eggs, and found the unbleached grits at places like Earth Fare and Whole Foods. The warm, soft, whole-wheat biscuits and the not-too-sweet, not-too-cinnamony apple butter still elude me. The Lemon Joy water, on the other hand, my friend Ed has offered to make for me on numerous occasions, and I decline.

Some things are best left to memories.