This is Caroline from Kitchen Garden Farm tapping her cabbage to see if it was ready to harvest for our greens salads. But wait: if you’ve been reading since the beginning you might have remembered us claiming with great gusto that we’d never have greens salads at Clover. So what’s up?

We’ve been committed to salads sans greens. But we started noticing we were turning some of you away when you found that out. And it’s true, there is something so nice about a greens salad when it’s done right. It tastes like you’re eating chlorophyll!

Chris and Olivia spent the summer learning about greens. Nobody is doing local greens on their salads in any real volume. Most salad greens are coming from California. We wanted to see if we could pull off salads, but do it Clover-style and support our neighbors. So we turned to our Western Mass farmers who told us about baby Bok Choy, Toy Choy, Red Endive. We played with Kale and Napa cabbage. These are greens that hold up well against wilting, and are a bit more nutritionally dense. Chris made a beautiful creamy turmeric dressing, and we found some yummy crispy fresh toppings. We said goodbye to our hearty side salads at Kendall Square, replacing them with greens.

We started getting notes like “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted at Clover since you launched the Impossible Meatball!” Customers started stalking the greens, only going to Clover locations that had made the switch.

But we also got notes like “Please don’t take away the hearty side salads, I can get a bowl of greens anywhere!!” People started going to the locations that still had the classic hearty sides, and worrying that their time was running out.

So it seems the customers have spoken. Greens are tasty and intriguing, but they’re not blockbuster. So we’re going to strike a compromise. Starting tomorrow at lunch you can get greens or you can get hearty side salads (we’re going to stick to beluga lentil and Jasper’s sweet potato Fresno salad, but these will change seasonally.)