22 July, 2016: She was too polite to say it was awful. People walking down the street are trying to open the door to this room. Then turning dashing across the street when it doesn’t open. I don’t know, maybe they’re trying to join me but then felt embarrassed or confused. Customers ordering lunch are scratching their heads. Stacia,… Read More
22 July, 2016: This is something like 6 years in the making. We’ve been wanting to open a restaurant in Longwood for a long time. Yesterday we had our “pay what you want” day. This morning we’re open for real. 7am – midnight. We close a bit earlier on Sundays. Smoothest open to date. Well… except for the fact that… Read More
21 July, 2016: I’m typing this in the middle of our giant Day 1 lunch rush at LMA. It’s only 12:36 and it’s pretty crazy, definitely our biggest opening yet. Hope everyone isn’t waiting too long. I wanted to make sure everyone in line knows that we’re doing some special post-open events to welcome different groups in the area. You bring… Read More
29 March, 2009: Blue and I hit Restaurant Depot this weekend. There in the Mini you see vinyl gloves, heavy duty floor cleaner (hey, I’m not a huge fan of heavy chemical cleaners, but nothing gets the floor clean like this stuff), ketchup, BBQ sauce, deli paper, and a few other things. The ketchup is Heinz (which I like), and… Read More
20 July, 2016: We’re opening tomorrow at 360 Longwood Avenue! Come see us from 11am-2pm for Pay What You Want Day. We’ll have a full lunch menu and all proceeds will go to The Food Project. We’ll open for regular business hours the following day, 7am-11am. Read More
15 July, 2016: This is the second of a series of posts I plan to write giving you a front seat to our website re-design process. The other week I shared my rough sketches and aspirations. A few weeks ago I reached out to 3 designers who seemed qualified. I think they were selected from a list that Ethan shared with… Read More
14 July, 2016: 6 weeks ago I was standing on the sidewalk taking in our new restaurant. It was wrapped in white plastic. Nothing identifiable as Clover. I was trying to use my imagination, and avoid bumping into the stream of foot traffic. One guy stopped and asked if we knew what was going to be there. I have “Ted” written down.… Read More
12 July, 2016: I’ve been working on a new version of our website. It’s a bit scary, because what we’ve been doing works so well for so many of our goals. But We’re excited to move forward. I thought I might open up this process a bit. We’ll start with a very crude mock-up I made a few weeks ago.… Read More
29 June, 2010: Those of you who’ve been following us for a while know about the back door on the MIT truck. It is exactly the right height for banging your head when you’re stepping off the truck. Nearly everyone has fallen victim to it at one point or another. Last week, LJ banged his head really hard and Chris… Read More
12 July, 2016: It’s the fifth year for Clover movie night so we thought we’d bring back a favorite: Back to the Future. This pic was from 2013 when Michael, a customer, wrote to me after ticket sales had ended asking if he’d let me in if he dressed like Marty McFly. If you’ve never been to movie night, we… Read More
11 July, 2016: Most of you know at this point that CloverFIN just launched. We’re at 160 Federal St. And I say we because I’ve put an office in this location. More on that another time. CloverFIN launched the same week that Pokemon Go launched. And I’ve already seen no less than 4 tweets about “this Pokemon is between me… Read More
5 July, 2016: We launched the Strawberry Broccoli sandwich 2 weeks ago. If you’re one of the people who have had their days made by this sandwich, here’s what you’re eating and why. Paul had been looking at a chart that one of our farmers sent. It showed that strawberries and broccoli were in season at around the same time in Massachusetts.… Read More
5 July, 2016: We’ve been doing Pay What You Want Days when we open a new restaurant. This was the scene when we opened CloverDTX. So hey, Financial District, spread the word. There’s a new Clover in your neck of the woods. Come to CloverFIN, 160 Federal Street for our grand opening. Pay whatever you want for lunch and all the proceeds… Read More
5 August, 2008: Moving away from graphic references to designing the space, here are some thoughts I’ve had about the feelings I’m looking to evoke. I’m really excited about the truck design, because I think a ton of this will come through thanks to John and Jinhee and everyone else helping make it happen. You should expect to see more… Read More
4 July, 2016: We went to Italy (Calabria and Sicily) on a food research trip. If you hadn’t been following that journey, you can scroll back to the posts tagged Italy. It was funny: many of the things we learned were less recipes to bring back and more ways to approach food. We kept seeing this salad in Calabria. This one was at a… Read More