You’re looking at a prototype of our stools for the restaurant. Ignore the blue, that’s just tape. We’re really excited about these. There simple, shockingly strong and durable, and not going to cost much.
Read on to learn more about the development
Branding
Exciting news: the MIT whiteboard is finally re-painted. Chris did this late Thursday night. We use this special whiteboard 2-part epoxy. It’s the best solution I’ve found, but it has 2 problems:
(1) It oxidizes in the sunshine (which is why the board looked so muddy)
(2) It loses it’s erasability after about 3 months of use
The solution is that we need to re-finish the board once every 3 months. Last time I painted it? 26th of August (you can look for that post). OK, so we’re not quite hitting once every 3 months. Something to improve.
By the way, the observant out there will notice some other changes. With our whiteboard, as with everything at Clover, we make changes constantly. Early on I tried many different whiteboard presentations. We’ve settled on this for the following reasons:
- Dollar signs are LARGE: what are we doing if we’re not proud of our pricing.
- Least ink to achieve the communication
- Short descriptions encourage (force) conversations with staff
- Date must be there every single day (that’s how you regulars know if the morning menu hasn’t yet been updated)
- Credit cards are represented, but with our hand-drawn graphic. I don’t like co-branding. But you need a way to tell everybody that we take plastic. This is my compromise.
- Operating times are included (this is a relatively new addition)
- Logo is written in permanent marker because it’s the one thing that doesn’t change. This too has evolved over time. Of course we could paint it, and many recommend we do. But the sharpie is more in line with our DIY approach to everything. And it’s cheaper and easier to handle. You’ll notice our re-supply van has the same treatment. I think it’s great.
- You’ll notice the logo is now much larger. I think I like the new size/ position. It gives more room for the stuff that changes. And it’s easier to read for the visually impaired : )
We did it. 3 events in 1 week. Food Project last Saturday, Arboretum last Sunday, and TEDxCambridge today.
Not sure how the money ended up today, but my guess is that we broke even at Food Project, made a little money at Arboretum, and lost some money today. Hopefully not too much. But it was beautiful today, and I was talking at the conference, so made sense. And everybody came out at the sametime so we had to be heavily staffed.
No cops this time around, so we’ll call it a success.
I think the talk is available online somewhere, or will be soon. I rehearsed it once for Clementine, my 4 year old. Hope the final one came out OK.
For some of our paper good we use a supplier called U.S. Foodservice. Don’t worry, we’re not getting any of our veggies from them. But they are the best of the worst when it comes to what’s called “mainstream broadline” goods. We’re talking paper cups, cleaning supplies, fry oil, etc. We’re working to switch all of our paper packaging to another (local) supplier, but that’s another post.
Anyway, US Food sometimes screws up shipments, everybody does. This time they delivered these cups. I called and sorted it all out, but they offered me 50% off the cups or replacement. I took the 50% off. As I see it you all are having to deal with ugly cups, but we just saved a bunch of money I can use to pay employees, or improve your food. Here’s hoping US Food has more screw ups going forward.
Last time around I bought organic hats. They cost me over $20/ hat. This time, trucker hats: $7.56/ hat.
You can have one for $10.
Barth from Barrington Roasters gave me some of these coffee sacks the other day. They’re sort of a waste product in their business. These are the sacks the green beans arrive in.
I was pretty excited about it. The sack is actually the sack our coffee, the stuff we serve you, comes in. And I love this kind of thing, I’m always trying to figure out how to re-use cheap things (e.g., milk-crates) and save money that I can spend on better food for you all.
This sack had me puzzled though, didn’t know what to do with it. Then it came to me, these sacks are the perfect protectors for our new whiteboard signs. These are special signs, some sort of enameled metal. They tell me they will not show “ghosting” as the previous ones did. We’ll see. But they do scratch, and what better than a perfectly sized burlap sack to protect them?
Are those shoes purple? Are they sparkling?
Yup, and yup. And check the lace job. Some of you may remember when we ran a survey last month. I wore some flashy shoes from Concepts and asked those of you who took the survey to deliver the secret code: “I like your shoes” if they wanted their reward.
This time around Brian is wearing the shoes. And I’m jealous. Just look at those sparkle! And I never knew you could lace like that. Awesome.
Two of these were sitting in Toscanini’s window the other day. Rolando and I were stopped in our tracks. That’s a lot of raspberries. Aren’t they beautiful? My cell phone picture isn’t the best, but wow, you get the idea.
You may not all realize how unusual this sort of thing is for foodservice. There are fresh, not frozen.
Here’s hoping Gus moves more of his ingredients and prep closer to that big window on the sidewalk so that we can all see what’s going on.
I thought this entry would be about Kogi as the antithesis of Clover. All hype, all image, no community, all meat, annoying capitalization of Ls on website.
And while those things are true, after having visited a couple of their trucks, there’s a lot I admire about the Kogi machine.
If you haven’t heard of Kogi, they are a food truck in LA that got started shortly after we did. They got a ton of publicity right away (publicist?) and were all over the place (CNN, etc.)
Our sandwich boards are getting a bit ratty aren’t they? I need to find a more durable solution.
That said, we really don’t want them to look like the example on the left above, or like anything that would ever be anywhere near a Starbuck’s. Don’t get me wrong, I’d really like them to be cleaner than they are.
That said, I’m very proud that we write on our boards daily. They’re far from perfect, some have even complained about my handwriting. But they reflect where we are on a day to day basis. That’s the timescale on which our food is made, that’s the timescale our communications should obey.
So what’s with these shoes I’ve been wearing?
If you took the our online survey the other week you already know. But I thought I owed the rest of you an explanation.
We’re going to be surveying you all once a month going forward. It’ll help us serve you better food faster. This most recent survey included a free fry/ free soup offer for those who completed the survey. I didn’t want to get caught up in some silly matching of customers to numbers etc., so for those who completed the survey, I emailed a “secret password.” I told them to say “I like your shoes” next time they came by the truck and we’d hook them up with the fries/ soup.
So I thought if I’m going to have hundreds of customers noticing my shoes, they better be something worth noticing, right? So I found myself at Concepts in Harvard Square. I actually love this shop. It’s run by a friend of a friend named Tarik I think, but I’ve never met him. For those of you not into the whole sneaker culture, these guys are one of the top shops in the country. A feat given Boston leads nationally in almost zero retail. Actually, in my opinion, this may be one of the only world-class retail shops in Boston. They didn’t invent what they do, but it’s a business that’s all about what happens behind the scenes: shoe design, promotion, social networking. And these guys do it with relatively little gimmick.
I went in and bought the most showy shoes I could find. So that’s the story of my comic book shoes. I sort of like them, do you? (you’ve got to be honest now, the survey give-away is over)
There’s an IAP design class at MIT that’s working with Clover for one of their projects. I’m hoping it’s going to be their most memorable project of the class. But I’m not doing a great job so far. I didn’t promote the class last week (TLC edged them out), and I was late for our first meeting today. I’d gotten held up at the bank, more on that later.
Our goals for packaging are simple: least negative impact to the environment while delivering a quality experience to customers. Secondarily we’re focused on aesthetics of course.
So I thought I’d post here a quick overview of the packaging we’ve used to date, with some comments. Those who read us often know:
(a) We’re excited about the idea of eliminating trash cans from our restaurants and moving to 100% compostable packaging
(b) I’m skeptical about the environmental benefits of re-usable packaging
Keep reading after the break if you’re interested in more detail about who we’ve worked with to date:
That is the working title for the TLC show. I’ve been struggling to remember it because it is so generic.
Thanks to all of you who came by and put up with the cameras and slighly slower service.
We’re happy about the coverage, and especially the timing. We’re working to get another truck and a restaurant open by the time this airs.
The experience was strange. More scripted than documentary. We were all repeating things until they were anything but natural and spontaneous. And there were a few things Rolando and I just couldn’t bring ourselves to say.
One of my favorite was Rolando refusing to talk about “high end techniques” we’re bringing to street food. Rolando said “no, we chop, we cut, it’s basic stuff.” We really don’t want to create mystery here. We focus on ingredients, recipes, and hard work, but avoid mystery.
We have big ambitions with Clover. One of the things we’re trying to do is create a brand that is as honest about our shortcomings as we are about our triumphs. We’re proud of what we do, at the same time we’re working to improve every detail.
I’m sharing recent correspondence with Barth of Barrington Coffee Roasters. This is a beautiful example of what we’re looking to foster. The specificity, depth, and honesty in Barth’s response is just fantastic.
I’ve been asking Barth for more information about our beans, he sent the flyer above.
I asked for more. He sent sent a bit more. I asked for more. We ask our suppliers to be patient. Barth sent this:
We’re going to need to get more official over the next few months. You know: packaging, proper uniforms, etc. First up: the hot-cup.
Some of you may know that I have this dream of a restaurant where zero food waste gets caught up in landfills. So we’re designing our packaging to be 100% compostable. That’s right, compostable everything. That means no trash, no recycling, just a compost bin at our restaurant.
Another design goal: keep it simple. Fewer products, easier for us to keep in order, and lower the cost.
And of course, we want our packaging to work for you. Expect not to burn your hand when you hold a hot cup, to be able to take our food away, even when it’s raining, even if it’s a large order. We want you to be able to hold our food without feeling like you’re a juggler. And we want everything to feel and look pleasant and sometimes exciting. Most of all, we want the packaging to preserve the food quality.
More about cups after the break…
One of our recent catering gigs was a MIT 100k event. We piloted an idea I’ve been playing with: using business cards as a cheap, low impact vehicle to deliver our messages. Above you can see 3 examples of crude (1st gen) cards I made up. The idea is to present them with those business card holders you see at dentist offices. Grab one if you like. Simple, factual message. 1 message per card. 100% recycled paper.
We want everything ship shape in case the President shows up. I just finished cleaning the whiteboard.
Come check out our super clean board.
We pride ourselves on cleanliness, but it appears we screw that up occasionally.
This tomato plant and flat leaf parsley have taken root at our loading dock. Pretty amazing. Little seeds from our tomatoes became lodged between the parking lot and brick wall and now we see the beginings of tomatoes.
I’ve noticed several tomato plants around the truck at 20 Carleton as well. Likely our doing. Just amazing, hunh?
You may have noticed we don’t spend much time here talking about the other companies that want your food dollars. You may not know that I check out 5-10 spots every week.
I won’t focus here on who is serving “all natural organic baked fresh daily” cookies. but it’s a great example of a lot of marketing you’ll never find at Clover. Heck, you have to ask before you find out how much of our food is organic.
So why am I such a hater on this type of organic-fresh-babble?
First, it generally assumes nobody is really going to pay attention. And what’s the point of that?
Second, it’s loud. I’d rather have you all hearing about Clover from one another, not a Clover megaphone.
Third, it costs money. You may nit believe it but some graphic designer and a bunch of marketers get paid for this stuff. We’d rather use our dollars to buy better ingredients and deliver lower prices.
Fourth, and I’ll admit this is what really gets to me, it’s BS. This example? It’s a chain that really really wants to be associated with health. So what are the cookies doing there? And what on earth does “all natural.” mean? “Fresh baked” — I can decode that one. I used to make these cookies at burger king. They are frozen pre-made dough you pop in an oven. And what are those oranges doing in that display? Are they fresh? If so why should they be wasted as display. Are they fake? If so, what are they saying.
Ok, I’m just about finished, buy before I close let me draw your attention to the sign above the soda. Hilarious.
The entry to the truck hasn’t been our highest priority. And while the working space of the truck is polished clean every single day, I’ve neglected the entry-well.
So this weekend I tore out the nasty rubber mat, cleaned it up nicely, and cut up a little astro turf. I think it’ll play a functional role (clean our feet), and supposedly it’s easy to clean/ maintain with a hose. We’ll see.
Now I just need to get some aluminum polish and go at that battery access panel with the streaks in the picture. It’s ending : )
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