When you move to a new town, the first restaurant you look for is the place that serves breakfast. You will, soon enough, form an emotional bond with it. You will visit once, twice, 10 times and learn to love the way the scrambled eggs are set, the way the coffee smells like baking brownies or the way the butter pat melts in one spot between two toast triangles. The grits may be a little stiff or a little runny, but soon enough they are your grits, just the way you like them. The biscuit may on the stodgy side, but you will find that stodgy biscuit-sized hole in your heart.

When my family moved to Decatur from Denver 12 years ago, we discovered Crescent Moon and began to make it a weekend appointment. Friends and neighbors sounded oddly divided whenever we brought it up. Some of them liked Crescent Moon just fine; other still felt allegiance to its predecessor, Thumbs Up.

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Both Thumbs Up and Crescent Moon had healthy offerings, along with their version of ‘The Heap.’

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We soon learned the tangled history of these two restaurants.

Thumbs Up had occupied that spot for over a decade, until owner Lou Locricchio sold it to Rob Atherholt, who changed the name and subtly altered the breakfast benchmarks.

When Locricchio reopened Thumbs Up in the Old Fourth Ward, I found the food almost identical and yet totally, thoroughly, utterly different. Crescent Moon, with its leering moon graphic, and Thumbs Up with upraised hitchhiker’s digit both seemed to be children of the 1970’s.

Both restaurants had natural/health-food sides to their respective menus: a chicken-and-spinach burger at Crescent Moon, a bodacious tofu scramble at Thumbs Up.

But something about Thumbs Up jibed with my palate. I loved the creaminess of the grits, the flavor of the grapefruit juice, the way I could order one egg scrambled with spinach and goat cheese. I could see why so many Decaturites still mourned it.

Before long, both restaurants started opening up satellite locations throughout metro Atlanta. Crescent Moon moved to a larger, modern space in downtown Decatur that attracted a perpetual throng every Saturday and Sunday morning.

In late 2007, Atherholt sold Crescent Moon to new owners who conducted a tumultuous one-year stewardship. They changed the look of the restaurant, goosed the menu, came under fire for not paying taxes and declared bankruptcy.

They also developed a poisonous relationship with their staff that, one September morning, quit en masse.

Atherholt, who still owned the physical assets of the restaurant, filed a lawsuit and vowed to reopen the restaurant that so many locals mourned. The name “Crescent Moon” got tied up in the suit, so he soon struck a deal with his old competitor, Lou Locricchio, to reopen it as Thumbs Up. A bright purple awning with the raised thumb went up on West Ponce de Leon Ave.

Rumors swirled throughout Decatur that Atherholt would earn the right to use the name Crescent Moon again and the restaurant would again revert.

But, for now, he’s out of the breakfast business. A new group of owners headed by Wesley McConnell have taken over the franchise and are planning to keep it as a Thumbs Up. There are enough Crescent Moon touches on the menu, such as that chicken/spinach burger, to make oldtimers uneasy. Do the grits taste right? Is this really a Crescent Moon in Thumbs Up clothing?

Meanwhile, a new generation of Decaturites has discovered the Thumbs Up whole wheat biscuit, which could break a window but is nonetheless delicious when smeared with butter and jam.

There’s a place in anyone’s heart for these biscuits.