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
15 December, 2010: This story is completely true. You’re not going to believe it, but it’s completely true. This morning a kid grabbed a woman’s purse in Harvard Square. No joke. And ran down Holyoke St. towards our restaurant. She was running far behind him yelling “STOP THAT MAN!” Chris was loading the Clover re-supply van and heard the cry… 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
26 July, 2010: Vincenzo is our new listman. I think he’s going to write about this soon in more detail. You wouldn’t believe how different it is to operate 2 trucks vs. 1. Wouldn’t seem that different, but it is. Add to that the growth of both trucks, and we’re talking about a 4-fold increase in customers served this July… 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
27 September, 2008: The body shop has cut windows in the truck. I think they are going to be fantastic. You can see here the sinks I installed last week and a bit of my plumbing job. These guys also did a great job cutting down the rear door (to avoid collision with the awning when it is installed). More… 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