15 August, 2019: Yesterday I was sitting in Acton with George Howell at his roasting facility. I told him about my new idea: ALT-MILK BAR. Clover will get a bunch of milk-drinks: chai, hot chocolate, pourover lattes, shaken iced lattes. All estate coffee (of course). And all non-dairy milk (we’ve been making our own in-house and it’s killer but we… Read More
15 August, 2019: Ayr created a bit of a commotion when he posted about corn not being in season in June. Here is a friendly reminder that corn is now in season in MA, about 2 months later. We’re getting all our corn from Steve Verrill in Concord, MA (thanks to them for this pic). We love buying local corn… Read More
14 August, 2019: You might not know this, but we have an Instagram with a hard-fought 12.7k followers. Not hundreds of thousands like our national competitors. We were kind of late to the game on Instagram. But we’ve also never bought followers. *cough, cough.* We try to tell stories, share mistakes. We post killer Food Dev stories Tuesdays at 3pm. But the… Read More
24 July, 2014: This happened Tuesday night. After our delayed hearing our application for a 24 hour license was heard and approved. That’s right. We’re going to open the first 24 hour Clover, and it will be the only 24 restaurant in Cambridge. We’re really excited. We’re used to unanimous support. Every hearing we’ve had since I started Clover and asked… Read More
14 August, 2019: I think we are going to kill the sealed drinks idea. As you know we make all our own drinks in house. 100 percent of them. As more customers have been taking their food to-go, we started experimenting with bottling them and keeping them in fridges. A year ago, we got pretty disturbed by the amount of… Read More
9 August, 2019: Have you sneaked a peek? We’re opening a new restaurant at 565 Boylston in the Back Bay. Ever since we opened the second-ever Clover food truck in Dewey Square, and needed to distinguish it from the first food truck at MIT, we’ve added 3 letters to the word Clover. Usually these were based on the T-stop near… Read More
9 August, 2019: We’ve turned on tipping. The bottom line: our staff are taking home a lot more money each week. That’s great. And it’s why we’re taking tips now. I’d held off on this for a long time. There is so much about tipping that is nasty. But I think technology has allowed us to avoid most of the… Read More
6 August, 2019: I’m really excited to announce that we’re opening our next restaurant at 565 Boylston St., directly across from Copley Square. I’ve wanted to be in the Back Bay for a long long time. We were counting the other day and I think we have more than 1,200 requests from Back Bay folks over the years. Forgive us… Read More
2 March, 2010: 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 Starbucks. Don’t get me wrong, I’d really like them to be cleaner than… Read More
31 July, 2019: I just got back from a 3 week road trip with my family. I promised more than once to send pictures along the way but I didn’t. I’m not sure why. I think I was just enjoying being off grid. Just wanted to keep those experiences to myself at the moment. Now I’m back in Boston. Man… Read More
20 July, 2019: It was 2:30pm on a Monday. I was sitting on a boat next to Stacia and Jasper. We were all putting on sunscreen. I had a frisbee in my bag, not a laptop. I was NOT in a Clover restaurant. None of us (us = most of our general managers, kitchen managers, and corporate staff) were in… Read More
11 July, 2019: We’re testing drinks sealed in the style of boba tea. Credit for this idea comes from Xian Famous Foods in NYC, who make and seal their drinks this way. We’ve always thought it looked really slick. Earlier this year, we found we were wasting tons of plastic using bottles. Chris hunted down a sealer and some post-consumer-recycled… Read More
11 July, 2019: Most people think of cottage cheese in a certain way. Usually that way is…not good. Luke, a farmer from Brookford Farm, came to Food Dev with cottage cheese that he makes on his farm in New Hampshire. Cottage cheese is curds and whey, and when it’s made with good fresh milk, it can be absolutely delicious. Luke… Read More
22 August, 2008: Uggg. So I went to pick the truck up today after leaving it for the week to have a hood installed. You know, those big stainless steel things that restaurants have above cooking areas. Turns out they are very expensive, but required by code, even for our little truck. So this is what disaster looks like. The… Read More
10 July, 2019: Hi! I’m Jane. Some of you might remember me from when I was taking customer orders and pouring coffee at Clover DTX 🙂 Now I manage the marketing department. I got a concussion a few weeks ago playing frisbee (I’m okay now!) and had to limit my screen time. I wrote out this entire blog post with pen… Read More