Hey everybody! We had such a great time at SoWa. We’re hoping to call this our new Sunday home. What a start. I didn’t expect much for the first day. After all, our formula usually gives us a slow start: zero promotion, avoid press, focus on building relationships with customers one at a time and delivering really good food. Normally we have something like 8 customers to start. Then, if we do our job right with the food and the experience (they don’t have to wait too long, we’re friendly, etc.) they come back. And if we’re lucky they bring a friend. So day 2 we might have something like 7 return customers + 5 friends. And the cycle happens again. You get the idea. We grow, but slowly, one day at a time.

So we were really surprised by our first day at SoWa. We served almost as many mouths as we do on a regular day at one of our existing (already built-up) locations. We’re thrilled for the chance to meet so many new people, and I hope we’re giving you a great experience. We’ll know we’re doing OK if you return next Sunday we’re up (market is closed for holiday this weekend, so it will be on the 12th). And we’ll know we’re really hitting it if you bring friends.

Thanks everybody, looking forward to seeing you again!

You’re just looking at the picture and you know I’m getting excited. It’s not the first time I’ve posted an image of home-grown technology. I need to put a new category on the website for this type of thing.

So what you’re looking at here is the invention of Mick, a new friend who is helping his wife Diane get a cupcake truck running here in Boston. You can check them out alongside us at SoWa on Sundays (but not this Sunday because the market is closed for the holiday).

That’s a cooler filled with ice. And a fan. And an exhaust stack. And a car battery. The fan blows air through the ice, the ice cools the air, the cool air keeps the cupcakes from melting. Isn’t that awesome?

HVAC stands for “Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning.” It’s an acronym architects, engineers, and builders use all the time. We’re getting 2 new 5-ton HVAC units installed at the restaurant at 7 Holyoke St. We’ve been back and forth with engineers who would like one more (3 5-ton units), but we’ve ended up with 2 in part due to cost constraints, in part due to space constraints. 2 instead of 3 should mean less energy used (I like that). And we are using something called “heated make-up air” in coordination with our hood which should also contribute to keeping everything balanced.

The real test will come when we operate the restaurant. We can always add another unit later if necessary.

I was over at City Hall yesterday. This is a picture of the plaza they are talking about parking trucks on. If you haven’t been following there is a food truck challenge the City of Boston has launched. We’re entering an really excited about the potential.

So yesterday there was a public hearing. I was contacted by some folks at the City (sorry, I’ll admit I don’t know exactly who you were when you called) and asked if I could attend. I was really glad they called because I wasn’t following this too closely on my own and wouldn’t have known about the hearing otherwise.

When I got to the City Council chambers I didn’t know what to expect. There were 2 log-in sheets: one for “Attendees” one for “Testimonials.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to present a testimony, but I think the person who called an invited me asked if I would. So after a bit of deliberation (sorry to who ever was behind me in line) I put my name on the testimonial page. But I was a little concerned because I was near the bottom of the list (arriving early is another thing I’m not good at), and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay all the way through to the end of the meeting due to some other commitments.

So then the meeting started, Michael Ross (I think he is City Council President? Sorry, I don’t mean any disrespect, I just don’t know much about City politics yet), asked me to speak before everybody. It was an audience of food vendors (including Speeds, M&M, Frosty, etc.). I’ve never been to a public hearing before and didn’t know what to do. They told me to come down to the microphone, which worked pretty well. But you all know I have a pretty loud voice. Not sure I needed amplification.

I kept it simple. Spoke a bit about Clover’s experience with the city (the G-rated version). Fact is Boston doesn’t really have any food trucks. There’s Speeds, M&M Ribs, and some ice cream trucks. Correct me please if I’m missing anybody, but that’s all I’m aware of. Then there are these upstarts, the newcomers like Clover and Fillbelly, etc. But there really aren’t trucks in Boston. Compare this to even Cambridge, a city that isn’t too friendly to trucks (they’ve had a standing moratorium since the late 1990s). Cambridge has at least 9 trucks that operate daily.

So from my perspective, as a lover of street food, it’s exciting to think that there might be more of it in Boston soon. We’ll see what happens. I hope it’s an open, transparent, and fair system that allows a diversity of operators to enter. I’m a fan of a simple fair open process. I’ll stand against any system that “locks up” the market. We don’t need one operator here, or one powerful business running this thing. The ideal would be a process that is open to everybody.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? That post title doesn’t sound very Clover, does it? Sounds more like something I would have said in my previous job. Well, at least we’re doing this at a table at a restaurant instead of in a sterile conference room.

I know you’re dying to know how this order system we use got developed (about as exciting at the title to this post, right?) Well that system (called a point of sale or POS system) is one small part of much larger plans I have for Clover’s IT. A lot of the stuff we do with computers isn’t going to be directly visible to you all, but it will show up in less obvious ways: like maintaining low prices, serving you quickly, keeping track of fresh local produce, making sure we keep the time from harvest to service as short as possible.

I’ve taken some flak from people who don’t understand why we use iPods to take our orders. Comments suggesting it’s unnecessary and a gimmick and disorganized, and confusing. I hope you all know us well enough to know we’re not into gimmicks. The order system evolved because we couldn’t keep up with demand with paper and pencil. We just couldn’t get past a certain number of customers/ minute. And, with paper and pencil we didn’t have a good record of sales. And, paper and pencil had us always yelling at everybody in the truck, which created confusion and was stressful. The order system eliminates all of that and lets us take more than one order at a time, which, if you’ve noticed, makes us much more relaxed when we’re talking to you. Now we can take time to answer your questions because the line isn’t waiting for you, it’s being processed by another order taker.

That’s Sean in that picture up there. He’s helped us a ton with our system development, basically for free. We’re really happy to have the help, my skills in this area are very limited. And we’re really excited about what is around the corner. We’re going to have the best IT system of any company in the world. I’m not joking. It’s going to be cheap, efficient, and massively enabling.

Those of you who know me know that I’m not always the best at dealing with bureaucratic processes. Well, there are a lot of things I’m not good at dealing with (the press comes to mind), but I’m particularly bad with bureaucracy. I don’t know if it’s the engineer in me demanding efficiency, or my inability to follow rules, or impatience when it comes to details. Whatever the case, I’m just not good at this stuff.

I got a call the other week regarding our building permit for 7 Holyoke. You may remember we had to file for a variance with the Board of Zoning Approval (BZA) back at the beginning of this process. “Fast food establishments” are not allowed in Cambridge without a variance. That was a long process, but with some help we navigated it.

(Gory details follow)

We apparently there was a signature on the BZA approval that I needed before our building permit could be reviewed. I was surprised, and it took me the better part of the day, and a visit to the county court house to sort the situation out. Get this: we were issued a letter a couple weeks after the hearing the confirmed the decision: an approval for the variance. The letter had instructions that I was to wait 20 days, then return with my letter to the City Clerk to file the decision. I did that. Then (I missed this part) I was supposed to file this decision with the Registry of Deeds, which is at the county court house. So why on earth would you set up a system that requires (1) that the applicant (me) comes back in person after 20 days? To what end? And, after that, why should I hoof over to the county court house? Couldn’t those things be handled by the city much more effectively? I don’t know if it’s because “this is they way it’s always been done” – basically nobody has tried to improve the situation. Or whether it’s because each agency wants its own check (oh yes, there is a check associated with each of these errands).

I just tell myself this is an adventure. I’d never been to the county courthouse before, have you?

You’re looking at a 400 Amp breaker panel. This is for 7 Holyoke. Our landlord is installing new electrical systems for us because they want to separate our usage from the building. It’s an enormous undertaking. Just look at that switch!

We work really hard to keep track of the dates and freshness of everything we deal with. But it’s rare that you get to see these out front. I love that somebody started labeling the ketchup. Most companies wouldn’t do this sort of thing. It’s a symbol to me of the back of house/ front of house separation, a dynamic that mirrored in the split/ discord between grocery and distributors, restaurants and supply, etc.

Anyway, I love that you can see this. I’m proud we’re showing it off (but can’t claim credit for the innovation). And I think you should be happy about it too.

We’re really excited. Just when the rain was trying to get us down sunny yellow T-shirts arrived in the mail to cheer us up.

This is phase 3 of the Clover Uniform Plan. We’ve been crafting this move for over a year. Our goal:

- Blue aprons — the color of an apron means something. search our old posts for “aprons” and you can read more about it. short version is that blue means apprentice. We’re making the statement that we’re all learning all the time

- Simple hats that don’t use much material and are comfortable (mesh in summer, knit in winter)

- Simple shirts that work with aprons (image in back), are printed in limited editions (get it, so that they run out occasionally!), and change frequently

- Levis 501 Blue Jeans (final stage) — what is more American, more lasting, less trendy? I grew up seeing my Dad wear Levis. I now wear them. Our truck will wear them. They are perfect. We’re working with Levis (more on this later) to outfit everybody in a raw denim Levi that will age and develop over time

We’re making sure everything we wear is available to our customers. First time around I made the mistake of buying stuff that was too expensive, and not buying ladies T-shirts. We’ve fixed that. Now we’re talking:

- T-shirts $10/ shirt while they last (men’s and ladies sizes available)

- Hats $15/ hat

Someday we’ll add the aprons and blue jeans into the mix…

The guys at the kitchen say somebody backed into our van in the middle of the night. I’d like to think that was the case. Either way, what a hassle.

I’m going to get this fixed. It’s going to cost us too much money, but I like cars and think it’s important that we take pride in and care for the things we own. I like my things, I like to take care of them, and I like them to last. Materialism is a powerful weapon against waste.