Boston, we’re crossing the river.
We think of ourselves as a Boston company, but Clover has never had a restaurant in Boston. We started out of a shared facility over in Jamaica Plain, and that was the closest we’ve come. Of course we’ve done lots of truck time, ours was the first new food truck in Boston, at Dewey Square pre-food truck program. It was our Soy BLT that inspired Mayor Menino to hire Edith Murnane and build a food truck program, now widely considered one of the best in the country. We spent 2.5 years on permitting to become the first truck licensed on private property (our CloverLMA site). We worked with the Friends of The Public Garden for 2 years to create the relationship that would allow us to launch our Park St. truck.
We’ve loved our Boston truck operations, from the original at Dewey Square, to Government Center (winning the food truck challenge), to Cleveland Circle (testing for restaurant, decided no), to BU, then BU #2, LMA, Park St., Rings Fountain, Aquarium, North End, we’ve loved Boston’s streets.
During that time we focused on clustering our restaurants. Our first was in Harvard Square, so the following restaurants opened in Cambridge: East Cambridge, Kendall Square, Central Square. Of course we have a truck at MIT, and we opened a truck at Alewife.
But now we’re ready to do restaurants in Boston. This will be the first. We’ll be following it with others. By spring 2016 you will be able to eat with us in 4 new locations in Boston (joining 4 trucks in Boston).
This restaurant was a former Boloco. John Pepper, who built Boloco, then left, and has now returned, has been a friend since the early days of Clover when I reached out for help. He and I were talking a couple of months ago and he mentioned that he might be looking to move out of his location on School St. We love that spot and were looking at real estate around the corner, so a bunch of lawyers later here we are, ready to do demo.
Check out the video tour. If you’re familiar with our previous restaurant builds you know we’ll be giving move of these behind the scenes tours. And you know we go very fast. Fingers crossed this might be open in 2015. More to come.
