29 January, 2020: David (training manager) grew up on Long Island. If you’ve spent much time in NY, you know you can’t walk a block without seeing a gyro, rotating peacefully in a stainless steel cabinet. Can you say it: “yee-ro?” Gyros are made of pork, beef, or lamb, stacked horizontally onto a rotisserie, studded with garlic, rosemary, thyme, oregano.… Read More
29 January, 2020: We’ve been privy to (and participated in) a resurgence in local grain over the past decade. More and more farmers are growing grain again in New England. Bakers want to bake with it, brewers want to make beer with it. But we’ve struggled with how to talk to customers and other chefs about why they should care… Read More
27 January, 2020: The Pushpir sandwich is leaving us soon (next Tuesday) to make way for the Venezuelan Plantain. Which means our boxes of magical, smelly chaat masala will have to be sent back to the HUB, and that is sad. Pushpir told us about chaat masala back in 2013 when he guided us through the world of North Indian… 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
24 January, 2020: A few years back, Enzo brought us a sandwich called the Sunday Mushroom, based on the Sunday red sauce his Italian-American family would make. Super delicious but never reached the status of a JSP or a Brussels. Then the other week, Chris Strange came to Food Dev with another take. Chris was inspired by toasted ravioli he… Read More
23 January, 2020: I wanted to get a picture up of the Quick Lunch from P&E (pictured). Lucia beat me to announcing the Quick Lunch because she’s so… quick! If you haven’t noticed, this is at Clover KND (Kendall Square) as of yesterday. In testing. A bowl of Hearty Vegetable Stew, a salad featuring locally grown greens, a piece of… Read More
21 January, 2020: We’ve been trying to think of ways for you all to eat more soup. Paul and Elizabeth’s is a family restaurant in Northampton that Ayr loves. They do something called a Quick Lunch – for $9.50 you get a salad, a soup, a dinner roll, and a tea! The “quick” part isn’t a lie – all the… Read More
20 January, 2020: You may have noticed that our new hats have the Clover logo, but made in Velcro so that we can stick patches to them. We made a special patch for the new crew at CloverBBY. Nobody else at Clover got one. It’s the least we can do for putting them in a brand new space with all… Read More
22 April, 2010: I’ve been sneaking a few Truck #2 posts in here lately. Soon that truck will have its own Blog. For now they will show up here. I met this week with the folks over at the City of Boston business development office. They are doing a ton to help us with the new truck. Not least of… Read More
17 January, 2020: We sent out a few salads we were not proud of over the holidays. If you got a salad from the retail fridge that was missing dressing or had greens that were a little on the dry side, please reach out (you can write to us at info@cloverfoodlab.com) and we’ll make you whole again. We’re about 6… Read More
15 January, 2020: In 2015 Paul and Bryan started talking about inventing a jalapeño popper sandwich. We were all skeptical. At that time Bryan was running CloverKND and Paul had been my intern and was running our Whole Foods account. They both grew up on the South Shore, going to a tavern in West Bridgewater called The Charlie Horse where… Read More
14 January, 2020: We did a Pay What You Want Day for our opening of CloverBBY. We ended up raising $3500 for the Stone Barns Young Farmers Initiative. When 11am hit and the line started to do this, it was all hands on deck. Will works on our accounting team. He’s usually face to face with Excel spreadsheets. That day… Read More
13 January, 2020: A customer wrote this review on Yelp the other week. Rob, who manages our Burlington location, passed it along. Wow. Wondering how we can encourage more of this type of experience… I thought the Chickpea Fritter sandwich was the best thing ever. I just had the Pushpir. Wow! I think it’s the tamarind sauce that puts it… Read More
20 November, 2013: Vegetables and fruit taste best when the time between being harvested, to being cut/ cooked, to eating is as short as possible. When the stars align we can get this cycle as short as 8 hours, and you get to taste something amazing. About 60-80% of our food is served within 12-24 hours of being made. If… Read More
12 January, 2020: It’s winter and we have Sunchokes back on the menu at breakfast and lunch (although the lunch sandwich is going away on Tuesday to make room for the Bridgewater.) Sunchokes have this strange draw. You hear one of our staff members describing it and then you just find yourself ordering it. Maybe it’s something to do with… Read More